Gearing Up for the Online SummerCon

The TTRPG in Korea community is hosting their online SummerCon at the end of the month (Aug 29-31). I'm signed up to run a Classic D&D game during the con. Hopefully, I'll have time to play in a few other games as well. It's right before the start of the new semester (Sept 1), but I'm more or less ready for my classes. 

I posted about my idea for the con game a few weeks ago. And in the mean time, I've redrawn the maps, revised and switched around some of the encounters, and added a few puzzles/challenges for some of the extraneous monsters. I also updated the pre-gen characters that I posted about a few weeks ago. 

This weekend, I created a Roll20 game for the adventure. I also digitized the maps using Dungeon Scrawl (a crash course in that app, which I'd only noodled around on before). I've got the basics of that down now, and the maps in the R20 game look pretty good. Not professional level, but good enough. 

I spent a lot of time today creating custom character sheets for the pre-gen PCs. Roll20 has a BECMI (RC) sheet, and a BX sheet, but neither exactly fits my house ruled version of D&D. I'm not running full TS&R rules. I've still got Dwarf, Elf, and Halfling as classes for this game. But otherwise, I'm using my house rules. I've got all 14 pre-gen sheets done -- two for each class. I still need to make token images for them, and get the tokens set up. 

I've got the character sheets set up with macros to roll for attacks, saving throws, and things like Thief skills or Turn Undead. That way the players can just go to the sheet and press a button to roll, and all the math is done for them. It will save a lot of time dealing with new to old school players. Considering the types of games on offer (5E/Pathfinder games of course, some neoOSR games like Bastionland and BlackHack derivatives, Free League games, various story/indie games), I'm likely to get some newbies. 

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In other news, I've been playing at the cafe I think would be good for our face-to-face Busan Tabletop Con, and it is a pretty good place to play. Scott and Justin have both visited, and they approve as well. Scott is pretty busy right now with the SummerCon, but after that's settled, I think we'll get to work organizing our local event. 

I plan to run this same adventure, and maybe either a Flying Swordsmen 2E adventure or a Chainmail-based tabletop skirmish/dungeon crawl game. AKA, reviving my idea from last year.  Probably more Chainmail than Gauntlet, but similar. I'd need to get off my ass to prepare for either of these two additional games, but that's a good thing. It will keep me engaged with the ideas. 

An idea for a simple RPG or Tabletop Skirmish game?

Yesterday, a couple of things happened that proved serendipitous. Flynn, my older boy, has been trying to get a game development group started within the local independent (mostly expat) artist scene, a group called Liquid Arts. Some of you may remember the GoFundMe he made that I promoted a while back. Well, that failed. And yesterday he refunded the few backers that he got. But he's got an idea to start the Liquid Arts game design group working on board games, and if he has some success there, try again with the computer game design ideas. 

I explained this, and the Liquid Arts group, to one of my friends, who was a backer. And it got me thinking about some of the simple board games my best friend and I designed back in elementary and middle school. One or two of the ideas we had may be worth re-developing. 

Also, my younger boy Steven has been playing a lot of the GBA version of GTA on our Super Console X emulator lately, but yesterday he wanted to play some Gauntlet II with me. Which we did. And while playing, he was wondering about more modern versions of Gauntlet. I told him that there were a couple of 3D games during the PS1/PS2 era, Gauntlet Legends (for PS1, which I had), and Gauntlet Dark Legacy (for PS2, which I never had). He got me to look them up and see if we could acquire them for emulation. 

Our box doesn't have (and apparently isn't a good enough processor to handle) PS2 emulation, but I found Gauntlet Legends, and also the arcade (MAME) version of Dark Legacy last night. 

Anyway, ideas converged, and I started thinking about whether the way Gauntlet rates character abilities might work as the basis for a fantasy RPG. I found this pretty quickly. And yeah, with a few tweaks, and the addition of some mechanics for outside combat activities, it could work. Or, it could be merged with something to make a tabletop skirmish type wargame. Something probably more simple than my ideas to use 4E just for tabletop skirmish games.

For a while now, I've been interested in what D&D would be like if Chainmail combat were used. But I've had too many irons in the gaming fire to start up a campaign using the Platemail 27th Edition rules or something of my own devising. 

My thinking, as I was laying in bed last night not falling asleep, and this morning in the shower, were to maybe merge Gauntlet style character ratings with Chainmail man-to-man/fantasy combat (and the Dungeon! board game) 2d6 style combat. Maybe throw in something like the Classic D&D Turn Undead table for a resolution mechanic for non-combat tasks if needed. 

Gauntlet ratings (taken from the original version) could be translated to: 

• Speed (how many spaces you can move per turn)
• Armor (how much damage is reduced by your armor)
• Attack Power (how easily you hit when you attack, melee)
• Attack Strength (how many hits you inflict on a successful melee attack) 
• Attack Speed (how many melee attacks you can make on your turn)
• Shot Power (how easily you hit when you attack, ranged)
• Shot Strength (how many hits you inflict on a successful ranged attack)
• Shot Speed (how many ranged attacks you can make on your turn)
• Magic Power (how easy it is to successfully cast a spell)
• Magic Strength (how powerful are the effects of the spells you cast)

The above Speed, Armor, and Strength ratings would all be set numbers. The Power ratings would be modifiers to 2d6 rolls. The Strength ratings might have a few levels with variation, such as:

• Lvl 1: 1 hit
• Lvl 2: 1-2 hits (roll d6, 1-4=1 hit, 5-6=2 hits)
• Lvl 3: 2 hits
• Lvl 4: 2-3 hits (roll d6, 1-4=2 hits, 5-6=3 hits)
• Lvl 5: 3 hits

For the Attack/Shot Speed, I'd probably look to AD&D attack progression:

• Lvl 1: 1 attack per round
  
• Lvl 2: 3/2 attacks per round
  
• Lvl 3: 2 attacks per round
  
• Lvl 4: 5/2 attacks per round
  
• Lvl 5: 3 attacks per round
  

Of course, one thing to consider would be that Gauntlet characters have hundreds or thousands of hit points, and can kill hundreds or thousands of opponents on each level (and with emulation, adding a "quarter" for more health is as easy as pushing the Select button on the game pad). Monsters do large numbers of hits compared to PCs, and armor reduces that damage. That's something that would need to be changed. If this were an RPG, it would probably be more difficult to scale it correctly. But for a tabletop skirmish game, it might work out alright. 

A variation of this system may also work for one of those old games from my youth that I mentioned above. The game was probably the best (and most complex) game that Todd and I made as kids. We made a map of our home town. Since the home town is tiny, it was a fairly accurate map, as we had every actual house, store, and church on it, minus a few people's sheds and whatnot. The game was an alien invasion game. We over-complicated it by having just about every type of alien from UFO lore that we could think of, plus a few from sci-fi movies (little green men, Men-in-Black, Grays, Critters, robots, etc.). In the original, the aliens had the goal of planting bombs in buildings, while the heroes (us) had to raid buildings for tools/supplies/weapons (all on cards) to fight off the aliens and prevent the bombings. 

It was a tough game, as we made way too many aliens, and we played them ruthlessly. 

I was thinking as well that this might be an idea to revive. Instead of bombing the town, though, maybe it would be an abduction game. And it could be played either cooperatively (like our original game) or competitively, with one or more players as the Heroes and one or more players as the Aliens. 

Again, I'm wondering if a 2d6 style mechanic like my Gauntlet idea above might be fun for this. Originally, I think we had just a regular d6 mechanic. It's been a LONG time, and Todd had our only copy of the game.

So, it looks like this year I may be experimenting with some table top board/tactical game designs in addition to RPG stuff.

Rules for Mass Combat: Fiddling Around

This week, I've been fiddling around with Frank Mentzer's War Machine rules from the BECMI Companion Set. I've always liked these rules. They can handle huge wars or small skirmishes with just a few calculations, a pair of die rolls, and some table look-ups. The only problem is that those calculations can be a bit clunky at times. 

For those that don't know, the War Machine has you first calculate a Basic Force Rating (BFR), depending on the leader's level and mental ability scores, the level/HD of the troops and their officers, and a few other things. This score determines the Troop Class (Poor through Elite). 

Once the BFR and Troop Class are determined, there are more calculations to get the Battle Rating based on things like training, arms and equipment, and force composition (how many archers, what percent of spellcasters, etc.). These bonuses are based on a percentage of the BFR, so different for each force. This produces the Battle Rating (BR).

Oh, and then when the army finally takes the field and meets the enemy, the BR of both forces gets modified by various factors of the encounter (relative force size, high ground, favorable/unfavorable terrain, defensive positions), and there are options to add on battle tactics with a 6x6 table reminiscent of the Chainmail Jousting table. 

Once the BR has been modified for each side due to the battle conditions, each side rolls a d100 and adds it to the modified BR. The higher total wins, and the difference in totals is referenced on a chart to show how many casualties each side takes, whether or not the forces are fatigued by the battle, and whether the loser has to retreat and whether the victor is allowed to hold the field or advance. 

Sounds complicated, but when we used to use it as kids, it worked really well for us. Most of the calculations get made when the force is created, with updates for training or for purchasing better equipment, or hiring a different cohort of troops (adding more cavalry, for example). And once a battle happened, it was kind of fun to go through the list of factors to see what we could add or subtract from our forces. Then then die roll! Sweet victory, or agonizing defeat all in one roll. It was pretty exciting. But it can be a bit time consuming.

So I've been looking to streamline the process. I've got a first draft of a simplified version of the rules, but they're not actually all that simplified looking over them again. Basically, I take out the Troop Class and separating BFR and BR. Just calculate a BR from the factors I've kept to consider. The factors that make BR based on a fraction of the BFR have just flat values now. Most of the things to consider in a battle I've kept the same (or nearly so, I did change around a few numbers, and incorporated many of the optional rules that we used to use). 

Now, the Companion Set does include a "quick BR" formula, which ignores a lot and is a lot faster to calculate. We would usually have full long-form BRs for our Name Level PCs' armies, but when a rampaging horde of orcs and trolls showed up, we'd use the quick BR to get their values (which often gave us a big advantage, as the quick BR ignores a lot of things that might give bonuses). 

This weekend, I plan to run a few war games with the boys to try out my current first draft. If it goes well, great! If it's a bit clunky still, I may modify it to be more like the Quick BR alternate system, as it is very fast and no fuss, no muss. I think that if all armies are made with the same system, it will be more fair.

The one thing I still need to set up before the weekend games would be "mercenary prices" for various monsters. I've included the mercenary tables from the Expert Set in TS&R, but that just covers humans, dwarves, elves, orcs, and goblins (plus halflings in my version). There are no prices for having ogres, manticores, ghouls, dragons, or giants in your forces, although the War Machine has rules to handle armies containing creatures like these. I never had a set price guide determined when we were kids, as the DM (usually but not always me) could just create opponent armies from scratch, and our PCs mostly stuck to standard mercenaries (and the occasional subdued dragon) in their forces. 

I think it's time to open up my Chainmail PDF and compare point costs for troop types with point costs for fantasy supplement creatures and get some ideas.

Mass Combat Rules -- Do we need them? Do we want them?

I was involved in a discussion of the BECMI Companion Set War Machine mass combat rules recently, and it's got me thinking about them. 

I had thought about adding a version of them to Chanbara, but I'd given myself the arbitrary and artificial constraint of 64 pages, and there wasn't room. I did manage to work in a revision of the domain management rules from the same set, though. 

For Treasures, Serpents, & Ruins, I easily could take the time to revise/streamline/simplify those mass combat rules, but should I? 

I have never done hex-and-chit war games, although it's something I would love to try one day. I've only done a small amount of miniatures based war gaming (a homebrew system my brother and I worked up for little green army men as kids, a game of Chainmail once). My friends and I did use the Companion War Machine rules fairly often in our old campaign we had as kids, though. 

The system of the War Machine is designed to give you an overall result of a battle, not a play-by-play of every move and every tactic. You do some calculations before the battle for each force. You figure any modifiers at the time of battle (with basic tactical options as optional rules that can be added on). Both sides roll dice and add the force rating, higher result wins. Check the difference in the results on the table to determine casualties and disposition of each force. 

Is it perfect? No.

Is it realistic? Not at all.

Is it simple to implement? I think so.

Does it allow you to add mass combat actions to D&D without overshadowing the PCs and their adventures? Yes. 

As I said already, I like this system because it's light and easy to implement, but it allows for some options to make it more complex if that's what the players want. So, audience of mine, I really would like to get your opinions on this. Would it be worth my time to go to the effort of revising/restating these rules to add to TS&R? Would you like to see something like this? Would it be useful to you? Should I spend a bunch of time on this, or not? 

Reconceptualizing Chainmail Troop Type meanings

 Yes, one more post about adapting Chainmail combat systems for D&D combat. Yesterday I told myself to give up on this and just play D&D, but this morning I'm thinking about it again.

One thing that the fantasy supplement makes clear is that while in normal Chainmail mass combat a troop's armor and mounted status determines their total combat effectiveness for melee, both offensively and defensively, that doesn't have to be locked solid. There are some fantasy troop types, like Dwarves/Gnomes and Goblins/Kobolds that attack as Heavy Foot but defend as Light Foot (why? I have no idea, especially when the stereotypical Dwarf is in at least chainmail). 

So if I do ditch man-to-man combat (which I'm again considering), weapon choice could still matter. We just need to reconceptualize Chainmail mass combat offense as tied to weapon class, not armor type. 

Light weapons (daggers, clubs, and so on) -- Light Foot

Medium weapons (swords, maces, axes, etc.) -- Heavy Foot

Heavy weapons (great swords, polearms, etc.) -- Armored Foot

Now, things get interesting. A plate mail & shield armored knight forced to fight with a dagger because he lost is sword is now rolling to attack as Light Foot, but opponents still need to roll to hit him as if he's Armored Foot. A naked barbarian with a greataxe rolls to attack as Armored Foot, but monsters only need to roll to hit Light Foot to damage him. 

This means Magic-Users are pretty much always going to be Light for both attack and damage, unless they have a Shield spell or something. Clerics and Thieves will be Light or Medium to attack. Clerics will most often be Heavy or Armored for defense, but Thieves will be stuck with Light. Fighters will be whatever they want, but mostly will be Medium or Heavy to attack, and Heavy or Armored for defense. 

Another possibility, considering how some monsters attack as if cavalry (like Wights/Ghouls) even though they are on foot. In a D&D type game, maybe a good way to make the Fighter better without lots of special abilities like feats and combat maneuvers would be to let them fight as cavalry (light, medium, or heavy depending on their weaponry/armor) instead of foot, even when they're not mounted. This would be a BIG boost for the Fighter. And it would only be applied to characters of the Fighter class, not NPC men-at-arms. Men-at-arms would still need to be mounted to count as cavalry if I went this way. 

This might be something for me to play test with my boys over the winter break and see how it works.

And it hit me this morning

 I don't know if I'm just slow, but I finally realized why the Dungeon! game's combat system is so different from the man-to-man system. It's because it's the Fantasy combat system, extended to everything from skeletons and goblins up to purple worms and vampires. Not sure why it took me so long to see this. Or maybe I did before, but forgot about it. 

I also got on Google last night, and read some people's reports of playing OD&D with Chainmail combat. Some were very positive, some very negative. Apparently, according to one account which claimed to be of a discussion with Rob Kuntz, Gygax never intended for anyone to play D&D with Chainmail combat except in the endgame when armies were clashing. The references to Chainmail, according to Kuntz as reported by a 3rd party, were just cross marketing. 

Still, though, Arneson used Chainmail for his Blackmoor campaign, and Megarry used the Fantasy Combat rules for Dungeon! which was supposedly his take on how Dave A. ran Blackmoor. So I'm still curious as to how D&D with Chainmail combat would play. And I'd really just need to add the Cleric and Thief to the Fantasy combat table (maybe at high and low level values like the Hero/Superhero?). 

Combat with mundane opponents would be Mass Combat by default, but breaking out Man-to-Man for special battles with human/humanoid opponents (but using D&D initiative instead of Chainmail's complicated version). When fantastic monsters are encountered, players could use Mass Combat or the Fantasy Combat table as they like.

Aside from the realization about Dungeon! just being the Fantasy Combat system, this morning I also thought about this idea. Any PC in the game will automatically get a squad of men-at-arms (or monster mercenaries if Chaotic?) with a Chainmail point value equal to their Charisma score. They would be able to add dice to Mass Combat rolls or help in Man-to-Man combat but not Fantasy combat, and absorb hits in any combat mode.

Yet Another Chainmail Combat in D&D Thought

One problem with using Chainmail's man-to-man combat in D&D is that many monsters don't use manufactured weapons and armor. For those that do -- orcs, goblins, ogres, and so on -- it's easy enough to use. For those that don't, we either need to assign their natural weapons as a weapon class or else come up with some numbers just for them. And I don't think a generic "claw" or "bite" attack line makes much sense when you have everything from giant rats to dragons using them. So each monster would have to be evaluated as to what weapon is closest to its natural attacks, and how they compare against different types of armor.

Then again, if we're still using weapon damage, then maybe it's fine to have one "claw" attack line or what have you. My friends and I mistakenly used the 1st level hit roll numbers for all monsters and even for higher level PCs for the first few years we played, since they were printed on the character sheet on the back of the Mentzer book. So dragons and giants and rocs had the same hit probability as those giant rats in our early games. Dragons and rocs just did a LOT more damage when they hit with their claws and bites. Maybe having numbers for any "claw" or "bite" or "tail slap" or whatever would work. I'd still need to assign those numbers vs each armor type, though. Or decide that all tail slaps count as morning stars and all claws as daggers, something like that.

And then we turn to armor. D&D of course abstracts thick hides, quick movement, large or small size, etc. as part of a generic AC, while Chainmail man-to-man specifies the type of manufactured armor worn by an opponent. AD&D of course kept the weapon vs armor table which is based on Chainmail man-to-man (I assume, never checked the numbers to see if they more or less match). It's one of the things I never liked about AD&D and never used when I ran it, so I don't remember if it's just hand-waved for creatures with a certain AC but not assumed to be armored, or just ignored. For this system I'm developing, though, I can't really ignore it if man-to-man combat is going to be a big part of the game. 

Alternately, when fighting animals, bestial monsters, etc. we only use the mass combat rules, or Fantasy Combat if the creature is on the list (or equivalent to something on the list). 

Of course, if I do simplify the man-to-man tables to match the mass combat armor types instead of the detailed breakdown given in Chainmail, that might make it more manageable. But it's making me think more and more that the system in the Dungeon! board game might be simpler than Chainmail's system. Especially if monsters are just given a general chance to hit. While Dungeon! gives the same attack roll for all monsters, I could give some variety so that bigger, faster, or just more dangerous monsters hit more easily. But then it would negate the bonus that Fighters and Clerics get of wearing the best armors. So I'd need either numbers for armor types, or numbers vs class (the way Dungeon! gives each class different numbers vs monster type).

Or, to make a long blog post short, I understand why the "alternative" combat system using a d20 vs AC became the standard. Many fewer headaches. I'm not quite ready to ditch Chainmail, though, as I think it might make combat interesting.

A few more thoughts on Chainmail combat in D&D

 Looking more closely at the Grey Elf compiled document for using Chainmail combat in D&D, it's pretty interesting. As classes gain levels, not only do they count as more "men" for the mass combat tables, but they are given additional attacks on the man-to-man tables. They can't engage in fantasy combat until they've gained a few levels (Fighters from 3rd level, but other classes from 5th or 7th), but since most monsters will still have a Mass Combat and Man-to-Man rating, it will be possible to take them on that way. It won't be easy, though. Most of the big monsters from the Fantasy table count as their hit dice worth of light, medium, or heavy horse, so PCs and their underlings fighting as light, heavy, or armored foot (in most dungeon situations) would have a lot of difficulty racking up enough 6s to take them out. 

I think I will keep Fantasy Combat as an all or nothing roll. You defeat the creature or not on that one roll. But it's risky, because that monster also gets one roll to see if it defeats you. Mass combat and man-to-man combat rolls will either deal hits (HD worth of hits needed to kill) or maybe I'll keep hit points and have damage dealt.

I will probably simplify the man-to-man tables, and make numbers only for No Armor, Light Armor, Medium Armor, and Heavy Armor. I may also simplify the weapon lists, as I will definitely include more weapons than the thirteen listed in Chainmail, especially if I retain hit points. 

One interesting thing I noted was that the range modifiers in Classic D&D of +1/0/-1 for short/medium/long range seem to be derived from Chainmail's modifiers. The man-to-man chart has that spread for many of the ranged weapons vs many of the armor types. But there are some where the bonus or penalty is +/-2, or even +/-3! That's a huge bonus on a 2d6 roll, much more significant than on a d20 roll. 

Finally, I think I will be going through the Dungeon! board game cards to get numbers for man-to-man combat against various monsters. Those could be listed in the stat blocks for monsters, one number for each of Cleric, Fighter, Magic-User, and Thief (similar to the Elf/Hero/Superhero/Wizard numbers on the Dungeon! cards). Oh, and I got my son the newest version of the game for Christmas last year, and it's got those classes (well, being 5E based, they say Rogue instead of Thief), and I think some different monsters than the original. 

Monster stat blocks will probably look something like this if I stick to the weapon type vs armor type: 

Goblin

HD: 1-1

Mass Combat

Attack: Light Foot

Defend: Light Foot

Man-to-Man

Attack: Spear or Short Bow

Defend: Light Armor

Fantasy Combat: NA

Move: 90(30)

Save As: Normal Man

Morale: 6(8)

XP: 5

If I go with something more like Dungeon! numbers for man-to-man, it would look something like this: 

Goblin

HD: 1-1

Mass Combat

Attack: Light Foot

Defend: Light Foot

Man-to-Man

Attack: Spear or Short Bow

Defend: C 7, F 5, M 8, T 6

Fantasy Combat: NA

Move: 90(30)

Save As: Normal Man

Morale: 6(8)

XP: 5

Chainmail Combat in D&D (thinking as I type)

Now that I've realized I went overboard planning a "simpler" version of my Treasures, Serpents, and Ruins house rules (that made things more complex due to additional cruft accumulating), I've decided to more or less stick with what I have. There are one dragonborn PC (oh, and one retainer) and one changeling PC still active in West Marches, and going forward I think I won't allow any new PCs of those races. NPCs may still appear, but I think I will weed them out over time. I'm also thinking I don't really need the half-elf. Play and elf and fluff it as a half-elf if you like. I'll keep half-orcs because I have a fondness for them. And gnomes may be retained, or just folded into the dwarf or halfling races (Willow style halfling magic-users may appear instead of gnome illusionists). 

So simplify the races allowed, and keep the current line-up of classes. 

Next, I'm still considering the idea of Chainmail Arena, but also a simpler version of TSR house rules. Today, I'm considering merging the two ideas. Make a simple BX style set of classes, and use Chainmail combat. Part of me wants to, similar to the Dungeon! board game, use 2d6 rolls for all attacks like the man-to-man and fantasy tables do. Part of me still wants to retain the standard Chainmail mass combat dice pool rolls, only on a 1-1 figure scale instead of 1-20. I think for actions involving higher level PCs, or groups with lots of men-at-arms/retainers, versus large groups of humanoids or pack monsters (wolves, stirges, etc.) the mass combat resolution system will be fine, and faster. Against "heroic" enemies or more dangerous monsters, it would make more sense to play out each round of attack/counter attack, I think. 

But will it make the game more messy? Probably. And will there be arguments about when mass combat rolls or man-to-man/fantasy rolls are appropriate? Again, probably. 

Also, I need to consider how to stat up monsters, especially those that don't wear armor. And do I want to keep the weapon vs armor tables for man-to-man, or like the Dungeon! game, just give each monster a target number for each class to beat?

If I go with the target number by class, it would be easy, because every few levels will just add +1 to all rolls for that class to simulate greater fighting power. But then it eliminates weapon choice. 

And then, what about monster attacks on PCs? Will PC target numbers depend on armor worn? Or class/level? Or a combination? And what about rolling on the fantasy table?

Hmm, need to consider this more carefully, I guess. And take another look at that Grey Elf PDF compilation of how to run D&D with Chainmail combat to see how others did it.

I'm going to post this even though it's a half-formed idea, so I'll be able to reference it easily in the future. And some of you may have a few good ideas to add in the comments, too!

More Chainmail Musings

 I was working on my Chainmail Arena idea over the summer, but then it stalled out. I was making troop type cards, and it was fairly tedious. Now I have realized my mistake. I was making individual cards for each individual troop. But since I'm no longer planning to use the man-to-man combat tables, I can make cards for groups of troops. I can then give them a bit of flavor (Cimmerian skirmishers, Orcish Brute Squad, Dwarves of the Crystal Caverns, etc.) and have a set number of 'figures' for each one that will determine the cost and combat power of each type. I may have posted about this idea already, it's been on my mind for a while, but even after coming to the realization, I never got back to work on the project.

Also, following some of the ideas people have put out for using Chainmail combat in OD&D, I'll be giving stats for all fantastic troop types so there's a chance that troopers can hurt and kill them. It makes sense to me that a big mass of archers or pikemen or whatever should be able to eventually take down giants, rocs, and dragons (assuming the latter two come to ground in the case of pikemen). 

Even though the troop types will be in groups, I plan to just use one token/icon for the unit. Realistically, I'll only be playing this online (except maybe some play tests with the boys) so no need to clutter up the map with dozens of figures. Yes, I realize in the actual rules 1 figure represents 20 men. I'm just saying that for a force of hundreds, 1 figure is still enough for this game. That 1 figure will just take more hits and suffer reductions in combat value for those hits before it's eliminated. 

I'm also tempted to try and meld Chainmail/Dungeon! board game style combat into the new revision of my house rules for D&D, but that's probably too much of a switch for my players.

Combat Round Resolution

 After years of playing 3E through 5E (yes, I got back into Classic around 2006, but have still played the other editions), I've kinda gotten used to the idea of each player making their entire suite of actions at one time in the combat round. Move, attack, other miscellaneous actions all resolve at once, before others act. 

And even in Classic, using group initiative, I've often defaulted to letting the players act in any order they choose on their side's turn, telling me everything they do at once. It's easy to go around the table and just adjudicate each player's actions one by one. 

Recently, though, I've been trying to run the combat round by-the-book. And in Classic D&D, this means the sides in combat each act according to the order of actions first laid down in Chainmail.

Move. Missile Fire. Magic (Artillery in Chainmail). Melee. 

It didn't seem to be a problem for the past few sessions, using theater of the mind. But yesterday, I had a small crumbling castle full of orcs and a troll that the PCs were exploring, and I wanted to use a tactical battle map since the orcs had chances to surround the PCs (although clever play with the first cohort encountered made that moot). Using the map, and dividing up movement from other actions, especially in simultaneous initiative rounds, really seemed to mess with the players. Lots of comments like "Oh, is this still the same round?" and "I move here and do X" - "You already moved."

So I'm wondering. Part of me likes the phased initiative system. But part of me likes a more open and less restrictive system. 

Something to discuss with the players, I guess, but I think I may just ditch the phased combat round and go back to just going around the table and asking each player what they do each round.

A small bonus

 By switching from only thinking of man-to-man and fantasy table combat in Chainmail arena, I've opened up conceptually to a hopefully cool idea. I'd read that Gygax thought fantasy rules should only be paired with man-to-man, but several examples of the game in play, as well as many notes in the fantasy supplement, suggest using fantasy creatures in mass combat. 

The mass combat rules will probably speed up games. Since I plan to play these play-by-post, that will help. Faster is always better in PbP. 

Also, with each mook-type unit representing a troop of 20 (or so) combatants, it allows each to be flavored as such. I immediately thought of Magic: The Gathering, where usually cards for weak monsters represent squads. Like the classic Mon's Goblin Raiders or the Orcs of the Iron Claw. Yes, there are some individual weaker monsters, but I like the idea of players not recruiting 20 generic "light foot" or whatever. They have to recruit Atalanta's Amazon Skirmishers. 

 And I plan to fully take advantage of pop culture/fantasy media/D&D iconic characters for heroes, antiheroes, superheroes, superantiheroes, and wizards of all stripes. Conan, Elric, Simon Belmont, Warduke, Strahd, Merlin, Circe, Melisandre, Madmartigan, and so on. Makes sense to also have some flavor for the squads of troops. 

Rethinking Chainmail Arena

 It's been a year and a half since I came up with the idea to use Gygax and Perren's Chainmail for an arena combat type game. You can read about it here, here, and here. 

I'm reconsidering it now, as it's been in the back of my mind all this time. I printed up and re-read the man-to-man rules, and I think that those should be enough for grunt level humanoid vs humanoid combat. I also read through parts of the Grey Elf's Compleat Chainmail Combat System pdf. It's a collection of clarifications, house rules, and design notes from the Grey Elf and others for using Chainmail combat resolution in OD&D. 

The explanations in it helped me to get a better idea of how to run Chainmail Arena. 

I've still got to figure a few things out. If I use the man-to-man tables for humans/demi-humans/humanoids, that's fine. Using the fantasy table for fantasy creatures is fine. But when normies fight the fantasy creatures, it seems to require the normal Chainmail mass combat resolution. I'd like to simplify things so all rolls are 2d6. Hopefully, this pdf will help clarify things. It seems like it will. 

 So this game is closer to happening than it used to be.   

Addendum: I've watched a video with an example of play, and read more of the Grey Elf pdf. I'm thinking now that abandoning the man-to-man table might just be easier. Instead of recruiting individual goblins or whatever, players will recruit humanoids (and normal animals) as packs/squads.

Arena Battle Map Test

Playing around with GIMP, I created templates for square grid and hex grid maps that I can use for my Chainmail Arena game.

They're large size images. If I use this on Roll20, for example, I can post them there. If I use RPOL.net, I'd need to host them somewhere else and include image links in the threads. Google Docs will probably be my host of choice if I do that.

Here's the first test map, a simple circular arena with a 'thunder well' that randomly shoots out bolts of lightning around the arena.

Chainmail Arena Update

Still puttering around with this idea, but I've been a bit busy with work (lots of student writing to grade this semester), Netflix (watched Daredevil Season 3 and watching Ken Burns' Vietnam documentary lately), being a dad...

Quick reminder for people who didn't read (or forgot) my previous post. I'm thinking of running an arena combat game using Chainmail's fantasy supplement. My son got me interested in the phone game Clash Royale again (I stopped playing it about a year ago, now I'm playing occasionally again), and that somewhat inspired this. Reading Jon Peterson's Playing At the World is also an inspiration.

The idea is to have players 'draft' teams of soldiers and creatures, I create several arenas (with appropriate fantasy themes - lava caverns, haunted forests, teleportation gates, floating castles, etc.) and let the players duke it out in turn-based combat. Winners will get prizes and XP, and when you level up you get a larger pool of points to draft your fantasy monster team.

The only hang-up I have is that to fit seamlessly with the 'fantastic combat' table, I should use the man-to-man rules, but they aren't by troop type but rather weapon vs armor. So for every type of human (valkyries, barbarians, knights, etc.), demi-human, or humanoid, I'd need to provide set values for armor/weapons. Or else rebuild the tables using the normal Chainmail combat values but converted to the closest result on a 2d6 roll.

I really don't want to have to play a split system where some units/creatures are rolling d6 die pool style, while others are rolling simple 2d6 rolls. I'd rather keep it at 2d6.

My recent foray into the Dungeon! board game for my West Marches game may also help me here, since that game (inspired by Arneson's use of Chainmail combat in his Blackmoor game) uses a 2d6 combat roll system.

So I'll probably have to come up with an expanded 'Fantasy Combat Results' table that includes the standard troop types. And all the humans, demi-humans and humanoids will mostly just be cosmetically different and operate as whatever troop type they are.

Chainmail Arena

My latest idea for a game that will likely not make it off the ground:

A turn-based arena combat game using the Chainmail Man-to-Man and Fantasy Supplement rules.

Players would make teams using the Chainmail point system, consisting mostly of creatures (but if they want to throw in a mess of human footmen or whatever, sure, why not?), and have their warbands duke it out in large arena spaces.

Arenas would have various types of terrain including things like traps and lava, and some would have goals like capture the flag (or magic sword), eliminate the enemy commander, etc. to spice things up a bit.

I would probably have some player vs player combat as well as player vs DM combat involved.

And I'd probably come up with a roster of heroes, super-heroes, anti-heroes, wizards and dragons that would be unique. Once recruited they're no longer available unless the team manager (player) lets them go. And if killed, they're gone, out of the game for good.

For victories, players would receive gold which they could use to hire new troops. Win or lose, players would gain XP, and levels would determine the maximum number of points they could spend on their warband.

I'd likely run this play-by-post so there would be ample time to review orders and results each round.

The Scarlet Citadel

Been a while since I read it now (still taking a little break from the Howard, reading Lovecraft on my commute, so I don't get too far ahead in my reading compared to my posting about the Conan stories), so last night I paged through the story again just as a refresher.

The Scarlet Citadel is the second story Howard wrote to feature King Conan, but it shares quite a few features of the other adventurer Conan stories Howard had been writing after The Phoenix on the Sword.  The story begins with Conan the sole survivor on his side of a massive battle (again).  This time, the kings of Ophir and Koth, working under the direction of the wizard Tsotha-lanti, have lured Conan and his Poitanian cavalry into a trap.  Rather than have archers or hordes of spearmen kill Conan, Tsotha-lanti personally comes up and uses his "magic" (a poisoned ring in this case) to paralyze Conan, and take him prisoner. 

Conan of course refuses the ridiculous offer the kings make him to give up his throne, so he's tossed in the dungeons under Tsotha-lanti's fortress.  He escapes, wanders the labyrinthine passages until he meets a rival wizard, Pelias, and then with the help of Pelias' magic, returns to Aquilonia to battle it out with the usurping nobleman in league with the two kings.

It's a pretty good story.  Not top tier Conan, but still really good.  It's also dripping with D&Disms.  Tsotha-lanti seems to be the sort of wizard who has some actual arcane power, but really just uses science when he can (Clarke's Law and all that) since it's easier.  Still, the poison ring trick seems like a Hold Person spell in action (or maybe Hold Monster, since Conan is Name Level).  The dungeons under the eponymous Scarlet Citadel appear to be a fairly standard megadungeon full of monsters and oddities, built by ancient pre-human civilizations and discovered by Tsotha-lanti and used for his own purposes. 

I can easily imagine Dave Arneson and his buddies, playing out some Hyborian wargames using Chainmail, and someone suggesting, "Wouldn't it be cool if we played out Conan's escape from the Scarlet Citadel with the Man-to-Man rules?"  Pure speculation on my part, of course, but it was likely stories like this one that helped inspire the jump from wargames to role playing games.

Battle of Dongnae Chainmail report!

First off, apologies. I remembered to bring everything with me except my camera. So no pictures of the game. Sorry about that.

In the last two days, Josh had been texting and sending messages on Facebook with tons of questions about the rules. He had volunteered to play the weaker Korean side, and wanted to know all his options. Well, I ended up overcompensating for his weaker forces. I didn't realize the wall would be such a benefit ruleswise. Actually, it wouldn't have been, except that we gave him double the ranged figures he otherwise would have had.

One other change we made was that since Josh's table is only about 3' by 4' (quite a bit smaller than the minimum 4' by 8' Gygax and Perren suggest, but we're in Korean apartments not Midwest basements) and we were using 1/72 scale minis was to change measurements to centimeters instead of inches.

With the ranged units all on the wall in two large groups, he was able to do enough damage with pass-through fire then his normal attack to totally wipe Alex's ashigaru archers in one round, and my ashigaru footmen in a two rounds. At that point, we stopped the game, as none of the Japanese units were large enough to take that punishment and return fire, especially as he had the cover bonus from the wall.

So while it may not have been the best game ever played, we did learn a lot.

a) the rules are simple, elegant, and play well
b) save actions involving walls for 1=1 scale combat
c) try to get a bigger playing area so we can actually maneuver

Even with the change to cm instead of inches, we still had the Japanese forces bunched up with little room to move, and the Korean forces behind their wall, basically just sitting there doing nothing.

It was a good experience, and I think I'll be able to set up some more fair battles in the future. We're looking forward to trying out the Man-to-Man scale rules, and definitely the Fantasy Supplement!

Blogger problems

I don't know if it's because I'm overseas (although Korea is one of the most wired up nations on earth so I doubt that's the problem) but I've had a lot of trouble accessing Blogger this past week. It's amazing I've been posting as much as I have.

Anyone else out there trying to access the site and getting timed out lately?

In other--gaming related--news, tomorrow is the big Chainmail game. Josh's flurry of questions yesterday ended up in me throwing in some extra figures for the Korean side. It's still an advantage Japan, but Josh has a bit more of a fighting chance this way.

Gotta remember to throw the camera in my bag so I can take lots of pics to report!

The Battle of Dongnae approaches!

So this Sunday we'll be playing Chainmail for the first time, trying it out.

Josh sent me about 50 questions about the rules today. I wasn't prepared for that. He's volunteered to take the weaker Korean side, and really wants to win. So he's trying to figure out every possible way he can maximize his chances. I've got no problem with that, but to be honest I really hadn't read through the siege rules well enough to answer most of his questions.

So tonight, that's what I'll be doing. Re-reading all the rules, and probably the siege section twice (plus finally printing out the terrain bits and making the 'wall').

Anyway, it's going to be fun, and I'll be sure to take lots of pictures and notes of how the game goes.