The Ongoing Campaign

Virtual tabletops have caused something of a renaissance in tactical adventure game play, if only because miniatures and terrain are expensive and computer graphics are less so.

 I'm not sure where I was going with this, but maybe someone will get some value out of it.

Adventure gaming has always had an uneven relationship with tactical play. The earlier D&D variations tended to make combat largely abstract, but this was done from the perspective that the Referee (aka Dungeon Master, Game Master, or whatever) would have a solid grasp on how combat should flow so that they could rule meaningfully on how players' actions should play out. Other games, notably including Melee and Wizard, ultimately adding non-combat-related activities as The Fantasy Trip, but also D&D-descended games like RuneQuest, laid out a tactical wargame for play and built the rest of the adventure game around it. Many would go on to imply that the wargame's actual board-play could be foregone in favor of imagining matters, and the details of matters like regulating movement were generally of varying strictness anyway, with games like RuneQuest just saying that characters would move "3 meters" or whatever and leaving the actual implementation of that to the Referee, while Melee or Champions relied on detailed hex grids to place characters in specific positions relative to each other and objects in the scenario space.

Most adventure games built these tactical wargames around the character as a basic unit. This resulted in tactical games where the unit of space was generally on that scale, so that a hex might represent one or two yards or meters, sufficient to contain about one character, or sometimes a few of them. A two-meter or two-yard hex might also contain a horse, and so that was a frequent choice. Some game designers might concentrate more completely on the human scale, resulting in some games such as GURPS or CORPS setting the scale at 1 yard or meter per hex space, or even in the case of Swordbearer at 1 "pace" of 30 inches/2 ½ feet for its tactical movement regulation. For some games, though, a tactical unit might as frequently be something other than a human being-scaled object, or even larger than a horse. Car Wars for example, while not initially intended as an adventure game, was centered on vehicular movement and combat, while also allowing for "pedestrian" combatants on the field. Since a typical automobile is in the range of 5 yards long, the game centered its maps on a scale of 1 inch on the map representing 15 feet, making a quarter-inch into 3.75 scale feet, which is close enough to human scale. A couple of years later, GDW came out with an adventure game modeling military operations in the then-near-future, after a "limited" nuclear exchange in the future war of Twilight 2000, requiring it to be similarly built from the ground up to handle vehicles. Shortly after, the company would revise its flagship adventure game, Traveller, to incorporate ideas that had developed in the intervening decade, from a different modeling of weapon characteristics that had initially seen use in the tactical boardgame Azhanti High Lightning (a development of the earlier Snapshot, intended to cover the claustrophobic tactical situations of close combat aboard spacecraft, something not well handled with the "range band" system of combat in the classic Traveller game) and then been expanded in the miniatures wargame Striker. Perhaps intending to encourage more military SF in the Rebellion scenario, MegaTraveller was also built from the ground up to handle vehicle operations, mainly by changing the earlier game's 25m "range bands" into 15m squares, which also allowed the game's combat system to be easily scaled down to 1.5m squares to match the grids of deck plans for spacecraft that had been drawn up for the earlier Snapshot and Azhanti High Lightning games, or scaled up by orders of magnitude to handle other situations like mass combat units. Some of the alternate scales, notably naval warfare and space combat, were inconsistently handled for various good or bad reasons.

Other GDW games would go on to use this variable scale in order to handle resolution as well. Space 1889 alternately used large hexes of 200 yards to handle aerial vehicles like sky galleons, taken directly from the vehicle combat games Sky Galleons of Mars and Ironclads and Ether Flyers and more abstractly handled character movement in feet per turn, regulated by the Referee much as RuneQuest had done in its first few editions, or on close quarters maps with square grids. 2300AD, originally and somewhat confusingly (as it had no relation to Traveller) called Traveller 2300, also incorporated vehicles. Then, the so-called "House System" was developed for a new edition of Twilight 2000, among other reasons to revise the timeline and scenario to incorporate the rapid changes that had occurred in the late '80s and early '90s in regard to the Cold War between the US and the then-collapsing USSR that were so important to the game's setting. That system used a variable scale of 2m individual squares and (initially) 8m larger scale squares, followed by a change to 10m larger squares in a later refinement of the rules. Before the rules were refined, they were adapted to a few other settings: the Cadillacs & Dinosaurs comic book series (and soon also an animated series) and a cyberpunk/horror crossover called Dark Conspiracy. The former did quite well, but as a licensed property was somewhat limited in scope and potential. DC, unfortunately, was badly marketed (for instance, it took quite some time before I even really knew what it was, and the advertising made it seem like a Shadowrun knockoff more than its own game in part by using the same artists as SR). The refined rules, using a d20 to resolve success instead of the earlier d10 system, were then unveiled in an adaptation of the system to the Third Imperium setting of Traveller, though that interstellar polity was entirely (and, in retrospect, inexplicably given the previously existing fan base) swept away in the New Era. This was followed by a new revision of Twilight 2000 that included the newly revised rules, known as v.2.2.

As far as I know, that was the end of the heyday of games that deliberately incorporated human-scale and vehicular scale, if they used a tactical boardgame at all. GURPS and its imitator CORPS (and CORPS was a simplification and development of the earlier system that BTRC used in its games TimeLord, SpaceTime, and WarpWorld, which was similarly inspired by GURPS; another BTRC game, Macho Women With Guns, was another GURPS-inspired system, though more in that case as a parody - the company has since gotten its GURPS-worship out of its system, as their current house system, EABA, bears hardly any resemblance to the SJG game) were built for man-to-man combat and never easily handled even mounted combat due to the awkward scale. Later editions of D&D were similarly focused on human-scale in the tactical combat system at the heart of those games, though some effort was put in to handle such things as giants. Interestingly, they tend toward the same 5 foot (almost exactly 1.5m) spaces of games like Snapshot and MegaTraveller. But many games just dumped any tactical matters into the hands of the Referee, usually without even providing guidelines on how combat should flow, much less how to handle tactical considerations. Some games just turned matters into "story" issues, usually with "talking stick" mechanics like the "raise" system of Dogs in the Vineyard, foregoing tactics as a consideration at all.

It has become somewhat fashionable among "old school" gamers to disdain tactical combat boardgames in favor of more purely "theater of the mind", Referee-heavy combat resolution. While I do see a place for that sort of thing, I think that combat boardgames are also of value. It depends on the context, as Matt Easton might say. Tactical play, while not the only method or matter of interest in adventure games, keeps things from degenerating into resembling "JRPG" computer games, with alternating lines of combatants exchanging attacks and spells.

 I've been playing GURPS, off and on, since the late 1980s, when a friend convinced me to get involved in a playtest for GURPS Cyberpunk. That turned out to be fun, and I slowly warmed to the system. However, I never became an expert in it, and due to circumstances beyond my control I was away from gaming from about when 4th edition came out until maybe 2008, then was pulled away again in 2011 or so, when I was forced into reading games more than playing them. As a result, I've never really gotten how some of GURPS works on a deep level. For that reason, I like to see examples of cinema explained in GURPS terms, such as the author of GURPS Technical Grappling, who has described the Black Widow fight in Iron Man 2, among others, or the author of the GURPS Tactical Shooting supplement describing various movie gunfights in GURPS rules (there are more than gunfights from movies under that tag, but unfortunately I don't think there's a tag more specific to that genre of post at his blog).

When one of the YouTube channels I follow, which is about stage combat among other things, posted the following video about the Max/Furiosa fight in Mad Max: Fury Road, it occurred to me that there are a number of useful and somewhat complicated elements in that fight which would come in handy for a GURPS GM to know how to portray in the combat rules for that game. So, I'd like to ask that someone who can write up such a thing please describe that fight in GURPS terms. If someone would be so kind, thank you in advance.

 

People have deeply analyzed AD&D, especially the 1st edition, as part of the whole "OSR" project. Some detractors have characterized it as a "Rabbinical" exercise in excessively close reading, as though there were no point to trying to figure out exactly what the intentions were of old wargaming hands, especially the hands of E. Gary Gygax, in creating the rules that they did. Certainly, we know that a lot of how the game was played in those early days was actually developed by kids reading loosely and then adapting the ideas to their own needs. As a result, a lot of rules that didn't seem immediately useful were dropped by the wayside, and later editions would adapt those streamlined approaches.

But we can assume that the writers, in this case Gygax, had a very specific idea of how the game was put together, developed after years of play with hundreds of players. And it might be, the OSR thinking went, that we could find useful things that got missed. And the OSR did, indeed, find useful things in their deep reading.

But I think I've found something that got overlooked in the OSR project, too.

So, everyone knows by now that AD&D, like D&D before it, relied on an abstraction of combat. That's the reasoning behind the minute-long combat rounds, the nature of hit points, and a number of other factors that are taken for granted. It was a time when there was no need for complicated "attacks of opportunity" rules or detailed maneuvers and combat techniques because all of that was simply assumed and abstracted into some simple rolls. Good enough, though some early editions pulled the combat round back to representing 10 seconds, which is still long enough to keep combat abstract, but also conforms better to the intuition that a roll "to hit" in combat represents an actual attempt to hit the opponent. Of course, we know that the original D&D and early AD&D rules used the minute-long rounds for a number of reasons, ranging from the round's origin in mass-combat miniatures rules, the desire to recreate swashbuckling adventure movie swordfighting, with its scenery-chewing acrobatic movement all over the set and such, and most importantly with the desire to have combat be meaningful on the exploration scale that covered the main "game loop" of the dungeon crawl. A fight, that perspective holds, should be capable of taking up a full turn or two of exploration movement and action. Since a combat is unlikely to last more than 10 or 15 rounds even in most extreme cases, it is helpful to make those rounds last 10 or 15 minutes.

All of this implies a very abstract system. There should be no need to model movement within the fight, as that movement would be assumed in the context of the melee as a whole. Movement should only be meaningful in the context of moving into melee in the first place, from one melee to another, or fleeing from one. Thus, we see charge rules, pursuit rules, and so on.

Fine, we see that combat was intended to be abstract. We also see some interesting approaches to modeling combat so that players have to make tactical decisions. Missile weapons, famously, fired into a melee will have a chance of hitting any character involved in that melee, and a melee is specifically defined as everyone within 10 feet of anyone involved in that melee.

What nobody seems to have noticed, though, is the rule on page 70 of the 1st edition Dungeon Masters Guide, "Who Attacks Whom". This extends the abstract nature of the combat system, assuming that characters are moving about, striking at opponents as the opportunity presents itself. We see that this is treated similarly to firing into melee, except that a character can't accidentally attack someone on their own side:

As with missile fire, it is generally not possible to select a specific opponent in a mass melee. If this is the case, simply use some random number generation to find out which attacks are upon which opponents, remembering that only a certain number of attacks can usually be made upon one opponent. If characters or similar intelligent creatures are able to single out an opponent or opponents, then the concerned figures will remain locked in melee until one side is dead or opts to attempt to break off the combat. If there are unengaged opponents, they will move to melee the unengaged enemy. If the now-unengaged figures desire to assist others of their party, they will have to proceed to the area in which their fellows are engaged, using the movement rates already expressed.

 This changes a lot in the way combat in the game is played. Players can no longer simply team up on one target at a time, moving on to the next only as each one is eliminated. Picking out the thief for special attention becomes a matter for Referee/DM rulings* rather than something just simply done at will. In our experience, too, it helps speed up combat in play even more as players don't really have to deeply consider who is best to spend their fighting energies on, instead just attacking whoever the dice say is the available target for that attack.

Anyway, if you're playing 1st edition and trying to use the rules as written to whatever degree, consider having characters in melee target opponents randomly. It changes things a little, and gives more of a feel, in my opinion, of the energetic combats of the films that inspired D&D combat, like Robin Hood or Ivanhoe.

*One useful area for rulings in a combat might be opponents held in place by a spell effect or a trap.

Earlier, I discussed what I like and dislike about D&D and closely related games. I offered some possible solutions, largely drawing on Fantasy Wargaming, to the problems that I have with the game, which is almost by definition the designing of a fantasy heartbreaker. This time, I will consider one of the first divergent variants of D&D, RuneQuest (I am not considering Tunnels & Trolls in the main because I have almost zero experience with that game, it being one of the very few early adventure games that I have not played much at all).

RuneQuest began, in part, as the Perrin Conventions for D&D combat (should that link go away, the Conventions are also available as part of All The World's Monsters Vol. 2 and as a .doc file here). This was a rules variant which provided a little less abstraction to combat, introducing ideas that would also be modified and incorporated into AD&D (segments, for instance, seem to develop from the "Melee Time" tracking system of the Perrin Conventions) as well as the rudiments of the RuneQuest combat system. RQ also attempted to alleviate the reliance on character classes, providing a new system, "skills", to allow one character to be mechanically differentiated from another. Skills in RQ were defined by their function and their skill level. Uniquely, RQ skills were rated by their percent chance of success (though in the first two editions, they might as well have been rated on a d20-scale, as all skill ratings were in 5% increments; as the basic game system has grown over time, some versions have indeed chosen to use d20s directly, such as Pendragon) rather than by an abstract level. RQ also introduced a magic system that was closely tied into the default game world presented in the rules, which allowed any character to learn some magic, but reserved the most powerful sorts of magic for characters who wanted to spend a lot of time and character resources on that pursuit. The combat system was further modified, as I said, to reduce the abstraction by introducing hit locations and limiting hit points severely, removing many of the functions of hit points in D&D to skills such as Parry and Dodge. Armor was changed so that it no longer provided an abstract protective value, but actually reduced the amount of damage that a successful, undefended strike would do to the character. Finally, the experience and improvement system for characters was tied to the use of skills in the adventure, so that a player would choose the direction of character advancement by the choices made in play, rather than by selecting a character class.

Those are some significant changes, but like D&D they are pretty straightforward and based in play at the table. Later games (GURPS, I am looking at you) would start more strictly with design, rather than being largely developed in play, and there are benefits and drawbacks to that approach. I will note that RQ does begin with such design considerations, but they seem to be developed from systems that were applied at the table and then refined.

Whatever, the point is that RQ offers a set of solutions to perceived problems in D&D, making it in many ways a fantasy heartbreaker in the classic mold. I like many of the solutions that RQ makes to D&D questions, but I dislike others. Skills, while a wonderful concept in theory, become, in practice, a bit unwieldy. They slow down character creation by forcing too many choices, extending the process of equipment buying (always the slowest part of character creation - which, by the way, is something that needs to be solved) to the character's abilities and, worse, doing so at a stage when the character should probably be just sketched out anyway. This may be less of a problem for generic NPCs, as their skills may be given default values based on the type of encounter, but that does require many more (or much longer) entries in the "monster book" portion of the game, as creatures vary by a lot more than just hit dice. I've already discussed other solutions to the problem of character abilities in my earlier discussion of D&D, so I'll leave that off now.

Combat, on the other hand… wow. What a revelation the RQ system was back when I first saw it. Even more because when I was younger I never really understood hit points and the abstractions of D&D-style combat. RQ's combat has the disadvantage over standard D&D style combat in that it is more involved and takes more time (what can be resolved in two rolls in D&D takes at least a full four in RQ, and there are more decisions for players to make which also add time). That said, I think that those tradeoffs are very much worth what they add to the game. Interestingly, the writers of Fantasy Wargaming seem to have looked at RQ at least in passing, as they apparently try to address the problem of multiplying dice rolls by combining the "to hit" and "hit location" rolls into one. Unfortunately, FW's method of calculating the column to use on their tables works against this. Speaking generally, I think that my ideal fantasy heartbreaker would draw its combat system from the Perrin Conventions and RQ to some degree or another.

Magic and religion in RuneQuest was similarly a revelation. It is one of a very few magic systems that I feel approaches the feel of what real-world people think that they are doing with magic and spirituality, to some extent. By giving most people access to minor magical abilities (increasing the damage their weapon does by a point or two, improving other characteristics by a point or two, minor healing, and the like), giving the option for more expansive magical abilities to specialists (a lightning strike or a burning ray of light from the heavens! breathing underwater! flight! and so forth), and tying access to these magical abilities to the religious sects to which the character can belong (which provide guidelines for behavior through emulation of the sect's ideals - a far better choice than the abstract "alignments" of D&D), RQ solves several D&D problems nicely. That said, there are other solutions to the magic and religion questions that I am interested in - again, I point to Fantasy Wargaming, which gives some excellent solutions to the matter of polytheistic religion that are not well covered by RQ's method, and which may be better than RQ at handling monotheistic religion as well. The other major magic/religion system that I want to consider (and will do so in more detail in due course) is the one currently called, clumsily, "Path/Book Magic" for GURPS 4E, which was previously called "Spirit Magic" in GURPS 3E and was introduced in C.J. Carella's GURPS Voodoo: The Shadow War. Finally, I've been researching the claims of medieval and renaissance magicians to see what sort of abilities would be best to include in a fantasy game (not specifically for this project, but the information is definitely of value here). There's a surprisingly wide variety of effects to consider, many of which are valuable for an adventure game.

So, to summarize, there's a lot to love about RuneQuest, but the breadth and ubiquity of the skill list is too fiddly for a really robust game of the sort that I might find to be ideal. I'd previously suggested a middle ground that might work better, which retains levels for players who are not interested in messing with skills, and skill specialties for those who are.

I do this on occasion, get all navel-gazy. You should feel free to pass it by if you aren't interested in other people's thoughts about what they like and want out of gaming.

In part, I do this because I really want to figure out what would be the perfect game for me at the gaming table. It's not going to be easy, since I have conflicting gaming desires. I like GURPS, for example, due to its flexibility and ability to model events with precision and detail. I like RuneQuest because of its clean, simple systems and feel of gritty heroic fantasy. I like D&D (in all of its variants, from AD&D to the Arcanum, Palladium RPG 1st edition, Swords & Wizardry, Adventures Dark and Deep, and so on for hours) because of the ease of preparation compared to most other games, its particular feel of heroic, fantastic action, and its placement as a sort of "common language" of gaming. I like Traveller because of its relative simplicity and mundane feel (which is a boon, as it helps to highlight the more unusual material in a way that heightens the effect). I could go on, listing the things I like about Flashing Blades, Villains & Vigilantes, Top Secret, and so on, but I think that the idea is illustrated. The thing is, the detail and precision of GURPS is not a good fit with the clean simplicity of RuneQuest and neither fits well with the quick ease of D&D prepwork, the mundanity of Traveller does not compare well with the heroic fantasy of D&D, and so on.

So, I need to filter everything down. I can't have the world, so I need to figure out what part of it is most important to me. Right now, I'll think specifically about what I like and dislike about D&D.

As I said, I love the quick prep. To create a character, it's a simple matter of roll 6 stats, select a class, roll hit points, roll money, select equipment, and go. Magic-using classes take a touch longer because they require spell selection, and some versions of D&D require a bit more involvement what with selecting skills/feats/kits/whatever, but it's all still faster than choosing where to spend point (GURPS), figuring out skills (RQ), or generating a full career-to-date (Traveller). So, I love that. I don't like that characters are then limited to actions defined by their character class, so that (by most versions of the rules) a Paladin can't climb up a cliffside or even learn to do so, a Thief can't pray to the gods, a Cleric can't experiment with summoning demons, a Magic-User can't learn how to swing a sword well, a Druid doesn't know how to track animals and can't learn how, and so on. Obviously, individual Referees (and some versions of D&D) have their own way of handling those cases, but here I'm talking about the main structure of a rules system.

So, what is a character class? It seems to be a package of abilities that cluster around each other, so that a Fighter knows how to use more different weapon types than any other class, learns how to fight at the best available ability, has the best available hit points (representing the ability to defend in combat, endurance, and so on, like the long swordfights in old swashbuckler films), gets the best category of extra attacks, and all of the other things that are directly involved in combat in D&D rules. But that isn't quite right, because the Cleric isn't really centered on worshiping the gods, instead having those abilities, plus the second-best category of fighting skills. Still, D&D character classes cluster around four different archetypes: divine miracles, combat, magic spells, and skilled abilities. There are some classes that cross over between those categories (the Ranger has combat, magic spells, a bit of divine miracles, and skilled abilities, for example, or the Monk includes combat, skilled abilities, and something like focused magic spells that are not entirely unlike divine miracles), but they seem to me to simply prove the point.

So, the main distinction of abilities is along those four lines. Dividing skills any further seems like splitting hairs, for the most part. Perhaps we could consider that the "skilled abilities" category should be directed at specialties, so that one skilled person is a burglar, while another is a wilderness scout, and a third is a sailor. But why should a character have abilities only from one category? As we noted, a number of subclasses in D&D cross over between these main categories. One of my favorite games (deliberately not mentioned above) is Fantasy Wargaming, at least in concept. It handled the matter by simply giving every character a level in each of the categories (though it compressed the "combat" and "skill" categories into one "Combat/Adventuring" level), effectively meaning that there were only four "skills" in the game. It also gave six areas of special talent, to cover specific adventuring focuses such as climbing, stealing, or tracking, which follows my musing on specialties.

I really like the way that specialties of that sort are handled in Lamentations of the Flame Princess. In that game, a character of the appropriate class starts with all of the specialties at default values, which are appropriate to use with characters not of the class as well, and then adds a number of points to them, giving a result that shows how many chances in six the character will succeed with using that specialty. Similarly, it is only with Fighter levels in that game that a character becomes better at fighting. Those ideas would be easy to incorporate into a game that otherwise structures character abilities on the Fantasy Wargaming model.

This sketch so far keeps the game within my goal of quick and easy prep. A character can be rolled up in roughly the same amount of time that it takes to roll up any other D&D version's characters. The steps are actually easier at start, since every character will start out with the same "character class" selections, having a level (or 0-level, which is what Fantasy Wargaming does) in each of the main ability areas. As a result, there's no need to divide up ability points for the skilled ability specialties, no need to pick spells (since every character will have some facility with spells, albeit very weakly - those who wish to specialize will quickly pick up spell mastery and such). Or, we could alternately say that each character chooses one category to give one level, with the others starting at level 0. That would require a slight bit more work, with fighters choosing a fighting style (other characters would be allowed to wait until they finally achieve 1st level combat ability), magicians choosing initial spell mastery and perhaps a magical style (again, other characters would wait until they reach 1st level magic use), and so on.

The most difficult part, so far, is figuring out how a character divides up experience between the four levels. Presumably, combat ability would go up by defeating foes in combat, skill ability might rise by the acquisition of treasure, magic ability increase by various magic-related goals, and miraculous ability by pious actions.

To determine how the abilities will work in detail, I need to figure out specifically what sort of tone I want. Wuxia/chanbara/effects-laden heroics? Gritty low fantasy? High fantasy? Manapunk? Something else? To do that, probably the easiest way to go is to create an Appendix N of sorts for such a heartbreaker project (I guess that it's a project now). I want my Appendix N to include both books and movies, since we have a wide enough range of fantasy film now to make that effort worthwhile. I'll do that in a different post, though. For now, I'll just pick two items to give a quick idea of the feel I want: Robert E. Howard's Conan stories and the movie Dragonslayer. That seems to indicate that I want a gritty low fantasy default setting, with magic that is mostly in a ritual mode and powerful, or quickly used and on a par with physical action.

I actually want the magic to more closely resemble a slightly fantasy version of what real-world magicians have claimed to be able to do, but not reaching into the stratosphere of the more outlandish, mythic magic of some of the wilder epics (like the Kalevala, say). The magic should look more like magic in the Lord of the Rings books with a perhaps more medieval tone, and less like the Dungeons & Dragons movie. Maybe I want to include the exotic rites found in Howard's Conan stories too, but you can actually find similar things in the grimoires of the medieval era into the 19th century (and even some of the more outré 20th and 21st century grimoires like the Voudon Gnostic Workbook and its related texts; not that I know yet if I'm going to directly draw on those late sources).

A not-unrelated question is what level of abstraction to choose for combat. Should it be the D&D-like abstraction of vast quantities of hit points being worn away until someone scores a telling blow? Or should it be the detail of GURPS, where every blow is described in detail by rules parameters and resolved? Or (more likely) somewhere in between those two extremes? That needs thought.

How should religion work? I think that I would most like it if the system could handle monotheist, polytheist, and abstract mysticism equally well. While the system in Fantasy Wargaming works reasonably well, it requires a lot of fiddly tracking of fluctuating numbers. I want to handle that with less constant attention and Referee fiat. I'm still not sure of the best way to go about that, so I will have to think about it for a while. I suspect that treating piety as the experience system for the religious level is the best way to go, with sins (or spiritual pollution or blasphemy, for those religions without a general concept of "sin") throwing a block in the way of appealing to God or the gods for favor and assistance. Further, there could be a system of mysticism related to this, in which a character gains spiritual insight instead of piety and learns to perform amazing feats (which would be something like the Monks of D&D). I'll have to think about matters like conversion from one religious type to another, practicing more than one religion, and so on. I'll also need to think about the differences between devotional action, theurgy, mysticism, belief, and other approaches to religious/spiritual power.

This took a turn from my original intention, wandering through the practical matter of design where I had originally just wanted to think about the nature of my preferences in a more abstract sense. Ah, well. It seems good enough.

I'm not really kidding myself, I know that it's going to be on the Middle Sea maps because I've been doing a lot of work on getting those maps ready.

I've made a few edits to both the Firearms and Artillery articles, adjusting things and clarifying a few points. If you haven't looked at them recently, and if you found them interesting, you might want to go back and check them out.

Everyone who approaches a game, especially a D&D-type game, usually has a few changes that they want to make in order to make the game rules fit them better. I am no exception. Here are a few things that I want to change in the rules as written to make the game better to me:

1) Weaponless Combat – use the Appendix Q: Weaponless Combat System I method from Unearthed Arcana p. 106 in place of the baroque system on pp. 72-73 of the DMG.

2) Recovery of Hit Points – replace the system on p. 82 of the DMG with the following: At the end of any combat in which a character took damage to its hit points, the player should roll one die of the character's hit die type and recover that many hit points (up to the amount that the character entered the combat with). After doing so, if the character still has a hit point total that is below half of its total hit points, the character may rest one hour of game time to gain back another roll of the character's hit die type. This may be done until the character has at least half of hit points recovered. Once the character is at least at half hit point total, it will need to rest a full day to recover another hit die worth of hit points.

3) Grievous Injury, Death, and Dismemberment – when a character takes a damaging hit that would reduce the character below 0 hit points, reduce the character to 0 and determine the excess amount of damage. Roll 3d6 and add the amount of excess damage and compare to the following chart:

Die roll + excess damage	Result
4-6	Second Wind! Immediately regain one hit die worth of hit points, plus 1 hit point per two full levels or hit dice.
7-9	Knocked down.
10-11	Stunned for one round, unless wearing helmet. With helmet, knocked down.
12-14	Knocked unconscious for 2d6 rounds, unless wearing helmet. With helmet, stunned for one round.
15-16	Broken bone (roll on location table below). Takes 2d4+9 weeks to heal. Additional results in the same location add 1d4 weeks to healing time each, but do not increase effect.
17-18	Fatal wound. Death in 1d6 turns unless Cure Serious (or Critical) Wounds cast (a spell so used will not return any hit points to the character). Character is unconscious.
19-20	Severed limb (roll on location table below). Will die of bleeding in 2d6 rounds unless wound cauterized or tourniqueted, or Cure Critical Wounds cast (a spell so used will not return any hit points to the character). Character is incapacitated.
21+	Instant Death.

This series starts here.

Layout in this game is pretty bad. Important sections are given little more than a line and a boldface title.

Like a lot of early games, combat is treated pretty abstractly in Fantasy Wargaming. The combat sequence works in several phases. First is a "pre-combat phase" that includes morale and berserk checks, declaration of intent, missile fire, and instant magic use. Next comes the combat phase, which includes three attack rounds: first, for characters who get the opportunity for a first blow, then a retaliatory blow, followed by a simultaneous flurry, or exchange, of blows (which can be replaced by an attempt to parry or dodge, or to disengage from melee). Each round is considered to be 10 seconds, so every character gets two attacks in each 10 second round. The final phase, the "post-combat phase", doesn't seem to be well thought-out, and includes a new morale check, followed by going back to the combat phase. This would mean that characters are only allowed to fire missiles or use magic once per combat. I'd replace that with simply returning to the "pre-combat phase", rather than bothering with the "post-combat phase".

Morale involves a modification of the basic mechanic, using a new table. It results in various levels of effect, from "Obey orders", which is the level at which a character will act as desired, through "Dither", which allows continuing difficult/dangerous actions, but not beginning new ones, "Act selfishly", which requires attempting to retreat, "Panic or surrender", which removes player control, to "Flee", which also loses player control. There are also notes on what happens on subsequent morale checks. Morale has always been contentious in roleplaying/adventure games, but I've long been in favor. Related to morale, there is also a "Control test", which is the chance that a character might go berserk. This is mainly for cultures that have a tradition of berserk (in the rules, Vikings), but also for characters with the combination of high Bravery plus low Intelligence.

An attack is either of missile or mêlée type, with different factors for each. As with most other checks in the game, this is done by adding together a number of factors to determine which column to use on a table. The table includes results ranging from a miss to various body parts. Characters can add 15 to the roll on the table by either charging or lunging, which then prevents them from choosing parry, dodge, or disengage options in the next flurry phase.

Now is as good a time as any to talk about one of the problems with the basic system. As presented, it is a clumsy system to use at the table, though not as clumsy as some. It takes time to look through the list and add up the relevant factors. This is mainly a problem with the way the list is organized, however. If the factors were divided into groups of similar factors (like listing the modifiers for each of the various characteristics together), rather than listing all of the factors of the same modifier together, that might work better by allowing a player to determine a value and modify it more easily on the fly as situations change.

The same chart is used to determine the success or failure of parry, dodge, and disengage actions. Various results are grouped into categories of "Failure", "Partial success", "Substantial success", and "Total success", which give various benefits ranging from no effect through reducing damage, shifting the opponent's attack column and reducing damage, all the way to taking damage on the weapon, completely dodging, or moving out of range. If the weapon is hit, damage is rolled as normal, then compared to a chart and the fragility of the weapon to determine if it breaks or is dropped. As an aside, the chart as printed includes one section that is not labeled. I think that this is supposed to be included in the "Total success" category.

Some locations, when hit, give special effects. These are effectively critical hits, and include double damage, stunning, temporarily blinding (from blood in the eyes), knocking down, causing weapon or shield to drop, or crippling or laming a leg. These could probably use some excessive results, too, like chopping off a limb or head and the like.

There are three pages of weapons tables, one of which is mistakenly left out of the large hardcover edition. All three pages can be found in the SFBC edition. The game includes no information on unarmed attacks. Weapons in the table are given weights that are very heavy in comparison to real-world weapons. A Short sword, for instance, is listed at "6lb-8lb". I personally own a short sword that is around 2 lbs, and that is fairly heavy, actually, for such a sword, so these weights are clearly far higher than they probably should be. Even stranger, the Long one-handed sword is listed as weighing "5lb-8lb", so the weights in the game are not even consistent with themselves.

There's a table of armor that takes up most of a page. Armor subtracts from damage on the areas it covers, but subtracts from Agility while worn. Shields are also rated with a "Defensive value", which corresponds to the rating weapons have to avoid being damaged when hit. I think that the values for Defensive values on the table are backward, but that's a matter for discussion, I guess.

Anyway, the next installment, we'll be talking about the Large scale combat rules.

Game designers have had a long tradition of setting the length of a combat round based on "feel". Rounds range from 1 minute down to 1 second in length. But how long should a round be, in order to make combat have verisimilitude?

In a professional boxing match, a "round" is three minutes long. During an average round, around 70-80 blows are exchanged. That comes to about 1 blow per 2.4 seconds, or roughly 5 seconds per exchange of blows, on average. If you intend to make fighting specialists get more than one attack per non-specialist's attack, perhaps doubling that length would seem appropriate. Or, perhaps, lengthening the round length a little might work, say 6 seconds. If a round might be taken up by non-attack actions, then shortening it would be a good idea, relative to how many rounds would not include an attack.

A game that I am nearly prepared to run, Terra Ultima is a science-fantasy setting, with some mild changes from the basic Swords & Wizardry: Whitebox rules. Here are most of them.

Character Creation

Stats are rolled 3d6 in order. Additional stat: Social Standing.

Only three classes are available for Humans: Fighting Man, Magic User, and Rogue Magic User. Levels above 10 require 2X the number of experience points as the previous level, but humans have no limits. Rogue Magic Users use the Cleric experience chart, but gain spells as per the Rogue in Savage Swords of Athanor.

Skills are taken from Savage Swords of Athanor, as well. Choose one from Group I or two from Group II. Other skills may be available, ask the Referee (specifically, any Secondary Skill listed in the 1E DMG is probably available as a Group II skill, except Trader).

The races available, other than Humans, include Dwarves (who may choose between two classes, Fighting Man - limited to level 6 - and Crafter, a special class limited to level 8), or Elves (who must choose between Fighting Man and Magic User at moonrise each day, limited to level 4 in the former and level 8 in the latter).

Hit dice are rolled at each new level gained, with a minimum number of hit points equal to those previously held. In addition, at first level, take the higher of 1 hit die for "normal man/dwarf" status or the hit dice of first level (so that a human Magic User or dwarven Crafter would roll 2d6, taking the higher of the two, or a human or dwarven Fighting Man would roll 1d6 and 1d6+1, taking the higher result), while elves roll 1d6 for 1st level Magic User and 1d6+1 for 1st level Fighting Man, taking the higher of the two.

Magic Users start with a free spell book containing Read Magic and three other spells chosen randomly. Magic Users and Rogue Magic Users may cast any spell from a list that includes spells from both the Magic User and Cleric lists in the Whitebox rules (at first level, this includes all of those on the Magic User list (except Light, but read further), plus Cure Light Wounds, Light (Dark), and Purify (Putrify) Food and Drink).

Equipment


Use the Encumbrance by Stone rules.

Money is changed considerably. Most coins are silver pennies or copper farthings. A farthing is valued at one-fourth of a penny. A gold crown weighs as much as five pennies or farthings, and is valued at 240 pennies. 500 pennies or farthings can be carried per bundle, 2500 per stone weight (as noted, a crown coin weighs as much as five pennies or farthings). Starting money is Social Standing x10 pennies. Experience points for treasure are 1 xp per penny.

The equipment cost list will be different than that in Whitebox. It will include some science fantasy items taken from Terminal Space. Energy cells will exist and be expensive, however, and there is no space travel.

Magic


Some more changes from the spell lists include Raise Dead being a 6th level spell, and Astral Spell and Restoration (from the Core Rules) being 6th level spells. Otherwise, all spells in the Whitebox rules exist, at the earliest level they appear (except Quest, which is a 6th level spell, and Commune, which does not exist - use Contact Other Plane instead, and use the version of that spell in the Core Rules since the Whitebox one doesn't make any sense at all). If there is a Magic User and Cleric version of the same spell, then the Magic User version takes precedence (except in the case of Light).

Combat

Mounted men are -2 to be hit by footmen; +2 to hit footmen; and +4 to hit in the initial charging round. Footmen attacking mounted roll 1d6: 1-3 attack mount, 4-6 attack rider (mounted attacking mounted may choose which to attack).

Fighting Men (only) with shields can attempt to take blows on their shield. If attempted, roll a save (after damage is rolled), modified for the shield's magic bonuses. Success avoids all damage from one attack, but shatters the shield, making it useless. Failure has no effect. Magic shields mark one tally on a successful save instead; when tallies exceed the magic bonus, then they shatter. Against magic attacks and breath weapons, normal shields cannot be used in this way, but a magic shield can be sacrificed automatically (given a tally mark, don't roll to save) for an automatic save against the attack. (This is a variation of Shields Shall Be Splintered!)

(Additional edit, 27 January 2012): Fighting Men with shields parry normal missile weapons as above, but the shield does not shatter when so used.

In keeping with the idea that I will be using the WRG rules as much as possible, here are my current thoughts on combat.

Hand to hand combat: In a period (30 seconds), each figure involved generates a casualty total in the normal manner. Individual figures will not be rated as LI, except for special cases listed later (and mostly dealing with missile combat). Casualty totals are compared, and the higher total does a wound to the opponent. Determine the nature of the wound by rolling a normal six-sided die for each casualty above the opponent's total and compare to a chart (hit locations? possibly as an optional rule). For multiple combatants, first pair off combatants, with any excess on one side divided up according to a method that takes into account nominal base sizes in the WRG rules (that is, larger base sizes can be attacked by more figures of smaller base size). In a fight with more than one combatant on one side, all combatants on that side generate casualty totals, each using a different random factor roll, which are added together and compared to the total on the other side. If the single figure gets a higher total, all of the figures opposing it might be wounded. Use a modification of the "Risk to the general" rules: for each figure, roll a die (regular six-sided die for "Enthusiastic", averaging die for "Disciplined") and multiply by the excess number of casualties. If the result is greater than the total number of figures fighting against the opposing figure, the figure takes a wound based on the amount of excess casualties. (Example: Abel and Beth are fighting against Xavier. Abel generates 1 casualty, Beth generates 2, for a total of 3 on their side. Xavier generates an astounding 4. Abel and Beth roll dice, with a result of 3 or higher, since the die is multiplied by the excess casualties of 1 and, since there are two of them, the total must be 3 or more, indicating that they take a wound of 1 die in value on the wound chart. If Abel or Beth are "Disciplined", they will take a wound on a roll of 3 or higher, escaping injury 1 chance in 6, while if either is "Enthusiastic", they can escape wounding 2 chances in 6.) Edited to add: If a figure that rates as a model (elephant, chariot, or artillery, or anything that is treated as one of those, such as dragons) in the regular game is fighting against a figure that is normal, but has no armor, then count the normal figure as LI instead of LMI/MI.

Missile combat: This will have the biggest changes. When firing a missile weapon, first determine initiative by rolling a die (type based on "Disciplined" or "Enthusiastic"). The firer with initiative fires first, then the next firer, and so on (any ties roll off). The firer will generate a casualty total and so will the target (using regular hand-to-hand random factors, not the special missile ones of the basic WRG rules). The target's total will be based on a base factor of 1, while the firer's will be based on either a target that is LI (LC if mounted), or the actual target type, whichever is better for the target. The firer will cause a wound based on excess casualties.

Wounds: The lightest wounds will actually be a "recoil" result, which means that the "wounded" figure will attempt to disengage from combat. The opponent may choose to press, which will allow the charge bonus in the next turn but risks being flanked by unengaged opponents, or to let the figure disengage.

Combat sequence: The basic combat sequence will be something like 1) Check morale of all non-player figures that need to do so; 2) Referee adjudicates maneuvers of unengaged figures; 3) Determine initiative for missile fire; 4) Missile fire in order of initiative; 5) Hand to hand combat.

Mounted figures: I still need to think about this, but currently I am thinking that, for horse/camel-sized mounts, a wound has a 50/50 chance of going to the mount or the figure.

When two figures or models fight in single combat, the WRG rules give the result as "wounded", and therefore captured by the enemy (so, a serious wound), or "killed". We should work out what these results mean to our individual figures at the roleplaying level.

My inclination is a dislike of the sort of abstraction represented by "hit points". I prefer that the result should be a descriptive wound which may turn fatal (or be instantly so), similar to what we see in Hârnmaster, CORPS, and the like. So, what I'll do is have a "damage roll" that will give a descriptive wound result that will be applied to the figure until it heals.

Since combat is adjudicated by comparing a number of "casualties" generated by the combat table, we will keep that system. The difference between the two results is the number of dice to roll to determine the severity of the wound, by comparing that total to a characteristic of the figure, probably the "Physique" we've previously discussed. I'll work out the details of this later, but that's a good basis for adjudicating wounds. The wound should have various factors, such as how much it impairs action by the figure, whether it results in unconsciousness, if it is bleeding, if it is infected, how it is treated and how it heals, and so on.

Anyway, just a brief note for reference.

The first thing I'm going to look at, in this effort to make an RPG out of a set of miniatures rules, is the combat resolution method. In WRG, when two generals or champions fight, the method is in two rounds: first, an exchange of missiles (in circumstances where that is appropriate), then, if neither is wounded or killed, an exchange of hand to hand attacks. The result is determined by the number of “casualties” inflicted using the regular unit vs. unit combat table.

The general method by which the combat table is used is to determine a “factor”, which starts at a base determined by the type of weapon used and the type of armor protection of the target. For instance, when shooting bows at targets rated as “HI” (for “Heavy Infantry”, which is defined as “Men in less complete [than EHI, or “Extra Heavy Infantry”] metal armour or in horn armour”, or, basically, what D&D would class as chainmail), the basic factor is 1. This factor is then modified by circumstances, such as “target shieldless” or “shooters disordered”, and a “random factor”. This latter is determined by rolling an averaging die (a six-sided die marked 2,3,3,4,4,5) and counting minus, then another die and counting plus. The other die is determined by whether the shooter is classed as “regular” (uses another averaging die) or “irregular” (uses a regular six-sided die). For missile fire, this random factor is counted as -1 if the minus die scores higher, +1 if the plus die scores higher, and zero if they are equal (this changes for troops without combat training, who are defined as 'D' class troops, but we'll skip that for the moment). For hand to hand combat, though, the minus die is subtracted from the plus die to give a factor ranging from -4 to +4 if irregular, or -3 to +3 if regular (the random factor is limited by the training class of the troops, so that a General, for instance, cannot have a random factor below 0).

This final factor is then compared to the combat table to give a number of casualties. This figure is determined by the number of attackers, counting each figure as 20 men, or counting each “model” (elephants, for instance, or chariots) as 5 of whatever is depicted. Since in single combat there is only one figure or model, we look to the result in the column depicting one figure. This can range from 0 casualties to 13, depending on the final factor total. In single combat, the total generated by each participant is compared to the other, with equal results indicating no effect, the higher result wounding the opposing figure, and twice as many casualties as the opponent indicating a kill. Another aspect of the system we will have to consider is the “risk to the general”, which indicates what happens to a general who is part of a body of troops when they take casualties, but I will leave that aside for now.

That all sounds pretty complex, but in practice it is very simple. We have, however, run into some problems for our purposes. First, if one figure does not fire missiles, but the other does, this method of resolution ensures that the non-firing figure will nearly automatically be killed. Second, while this system works very well for the single combat of two members of opposing armies, it reduces the whole thing to a simple die roll, or at best two. This may be unsatisfying for players in a game where the only figure they have is the one representing their character. We'll come back to this in a bit.

Now, we need to determine what factors exist in the game to differentiate one figure from another. There are several. First is the type, mentioned above, of “regular” or “irregular”. These are defined in the rules as follows: “Regular troops are enlisted into units commanded by officers. They are usually, but not always, paid and uniformed. They are taught drill as well as weapon handling, and can obey orders such as 'Double your ranks!' and 'Left incline!'”; “Irregular troops are combined into units usually consisting of relatives or neighbours and usually commanded by a local chieftain or feudal superior. Their training has been largely confined to weapon handling and keeping roughly in line, and they can only obey orders such as 'You lot go over there and do so-and-so!' They are not necessarily inferior in fighting power to regulars, but are usually less manoeuvrable, and always less consistent in behaviour.” This seems like an excellent starting point for differentiating different characters, so that each player will pick a category for his figure. We might call them “Disciplined” and “Enthusiastic”, in keeping with the individual scale of the game.

Next, we have the class of the figures, which is defined as 'A', 'B', 'C', or 'D'. Basically, 'A' class troops are elites, while 'D' class troops are untrained or barely so (civilians, for instance, are classed as 'D' in those lists where defense of refugees was a notable part of the history of the army described in the list, or where civilian engineers and laborers had a notable part to play in one battle or another). This is related to the idea of character power, but one thing that comes out is that there is little indication of the class changing over time. Instead, it refers to basic fighting ability. We may depict this by reference to something like character class, but we'll have to wait and see on that.

Finally, from the point of view of combat, the last differentiation we can find is in the Fantasy Adaptions section, where we find an entry for “Heroic attributes for general or unit commander” listed. This is where we should count experience and whatever equivalent to character level we end up using. The basic entry indicates that a figure with heroic attributes fights as if it were 3 figures, and adds a bonus to the morale reactions of units it influences as commander or general. We can assume that the number of figures and morale bonus should be related to the experience level of the figure, so that a starting figure fights as one figure with no morale bonus, a “second level” (or whatever) figure will fight as two and gain a +1 bonus to unit morale when leading, and so on.

(We have other ways to differentiate figures from each other, but we'll discuss religious attributes, magical powers, engineering abilities, and so on later. In addition, we need to figure out an equivalent to the alignment system, but I personally am not fond of D&D's alignment system, so perhaps another method will suggest itself. I will probably cheat and look at what others have done since D&D, or have suggested as alterations to the D&D system.)

That's a lot to consider. Right now, it looks like we're going to have a system in which the player will pick type (Disciplined or Enthusiastic), fighting class (perhaps this will influence other choices, or perhaps it will be based on a type of character class, but we'll have to see about that), and then gets an ability to fight based on a character level mechanism or some such thing.

One other matter to consider is the difference between “figures” and “models”. Since a dragon, for instance, counts as five actual dragons to a model, while a warrior counts as twenty to a figure, the fighting ability of a single dragon starts out as four times greater than that of a warrior, further modified by the type of weapon and defensive capability of each. So, if a dragon's attack is counted as “Elephant or chariot horse” attacking an “HI” figure (base factor of 2), then the “HI” figure counts as “Other infantry weapons” attacking an “Elephant” model (base factor of 1), each inflicts one casualty as a base. However, the dragon does so as a unit of five dragons, while the “HI” figure does so as a unit of twenty warriors. That's a 20% vs. 5% ratio. That is not so important in a game of armies, but is critically important to us in our game of individuals. Perhaps we should count models as fighting on the “4” column of the casualty table, so that our dragon attacking with a factor of 2 gets 5 casualties. More specifically, we'll end up treating large creatures as several figures, varying the number based on the creature.

Decisions, decisions.

Another thing to consider is a method to get similar results to the table without using the table. We could call this our "Alternate combat system".

Anyway, the result gained through this is defined as "wounded" or "killed". We'll need to figure out what that means to our individual characters. While a wounded general is shuffled off the battlefield or captured by the enemy, our individual warriors can choose to keep fighting, but with some sort of penalty. We don't need no steenkin' hit points, but we do need to know what a wound does to the character. We might also include a vital statistic that indicates how resilient the character is to being wounded, which we might call "Endurance" or "Size" or "Physique" or some such thing. Similarly, we might have another vital statistic (or the same one) which increases the penalty of a wound inflicted, which we might call "Strength" or "Physique". I like "Physique", and may have to use it. We'll find other vital statistics for other aspects of the game. Maybe the fighting class we discussed above will be a rolled vital statistic instead. Many things to consider.