tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12875506923129553282024-03-14T02:31:52.552-07:00No School GrognardThoughts on role-playing gamesMark Langsdorfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00301984145275679568noreply@blogger.comBlogger201125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1287550692312955328.post-26566209979853032212018-01-29T07:16:00.001-08:002018-01-29T07:16:49.257-08:00It came from the GURPS forums: Low-Tech armor and fire damage<b>Precis</b>: An examination of the effects of fire on low-tech characters.<br />
<br />
Over on the GURPS forums, there's a thread on <a href="http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?t=155175" target="_blank">what happens to a fantasy character in light armor who gets dropped into a bonfire.</a> The short answer is, not much in the short term, as his armor protects him for most of the direct damage from fire. People then pointed out additional consequences, and I wanted to go through all the rules and see what happens.<br />
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In this example, three delvers are dropped in a 15' deep pit filled with a perpetual fire. The delvers are Neil Knightly, a ST 14 HT 13 Knight in DR6 plate harness; Theo Thiefly, a ST 11 HT 11 Thief in DR2 leather armor; and Will Wizardly, a ST 10 HT 12 wizard in a DR 1 padded cloth robe. Will was hit by a magebane potion before being dropped in the pit and can't cast any spells. All three made Acrobatics rolls to reduce the distance fallen to effectively 0 yards and took no damage on landing: they're at full HP and FP but have no way of leaving the pit.<br />
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<h4>
Fire, Heat, and Smoke</h4>
Their immediate problem is the flame of the fire pit. Fires of ordinary intensity do 1d-1 bu damage per second (Basic 433) as large-area injury. Armor DR protects normally. Neil's and Theo's armor have full body cover with no weak points, so the average of their torso DR and worst armor DR is 6 and 2 respectively, but Will is wearing a pointy hat instead of a full face helmet, so the average of his torso DR and the least protected hit location is 1/2, rounded down to 0. Neil's armor will completely protect him from the flame damage as the maximum damage of 5 is less than his armor DR; Theo will take 0-3 injury from the flame each second, averaging 1 point of damage every other second, and Will will take 1-5 points of injury from the flame because the minimum damage from a non-crushing attack is 1 and he has 0 effective DR. On average, he takes 8 points of injury every 3 seconds.<br />
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All of their clothing and armor is resistant to burning, and requires at least 10 points of burning damage in a single attack to ignite. Prolonged exposure has about a 1/6 chance of igniting something every 10 seconds, which isn't a concern since they're already surrounded by fire, but it might effect their gear eventually. Their flesh, being highly resistant to burning, will not ignite in this ordinary fire.<br />
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Their second problem is the heat (Basic 433). The temperature comfort zone for humans is 55 degrees wide and maxes out at 90 degrees F; any heat over the zone maximum plus 6 times the zone width is considered intense. In this case, that's 420 F, and the fire is burning at well over 800 F. Each delver's armor protects them against the effects of heat for 3 x DR seconds, and then they have to make HT rolls every second or lose 1 FP. They'll start to risk unconsciousness after losing FP equal to their HT, and FP loss of more than twice their HT is converted to HP loss. This isn't a concern for Will, who will be killed by the flames long before this is an issue, but Neil has to worry about it.<br />
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The final problem is that fires produce smoke, which GURPS treats as a poison (Basic 439) with a 10 second delay and a HT roll to resist. Failure causes coughing. The rules say that dense smoke causes damage but don't specify a mechanism: I'm going to rule that dense smoke has a secondary effect of choking, caused by failing a second HT roll to resist or failing the first HT by 5 or more. Each delver can avoid the effects of the smoke by holding their breath, which they can do for 2xHT seconds (see Basic 351: being on fire is mild exertion, but they were surprised and didn't have a chance to take deep breaths before falling into the pit). After that, they either breath smoke or lose 1 FP per second.<br />
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<h4>
Slow Cooking a Knight</h4>
Will is doomed, and quickly. The flames burn him for more than HP damage within 6-7 seconds, and then he falls unconscious within a few seconds more. He probably dies before he inhales enough smoke to worry about coughing, as he hits -1xHP and his first HT roll to resist death around 11 seconds and -5xHP and automatic death around 24 seconds.<br />
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Theo is not much better off. The flames do cumulative damage equal to his HP after 23 seconds, just as his breath gives out. He falls unconscious a few seconds later. He goes below -1xHP after 40 seconds, and dies sometime between then and 90 seconds, when he hits -5xHP.<br />
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Neil is in comparatively good shape. His armor completely protects him from the flames, protects him from the heat for 18 seconds, and he can hold his breath for 26 seconds. He doesn't have to make a single HT for 18 seconds, and even when he does, his high HT means he only fails 1 in 6. On average, Neil should be conscious long enough to watch Theo and Will die, though he passes out shortly after that. He doesn't take any HP damage for nearly 3 minutes, and he doesn't accumulate enough damage to risk death for nearly 6 minutes. He has good odds of surviving for over 10 minutes, but will inevitably die around the 12 minute mark.<br />
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<h4>
How Real is It?</h4>
This <a href="http://www.fireengineering.com/articles/2010/07/survivability-profiling-how-long-can-victims-survive-in-a-fire.html" target="_blank">depressing article</a> suggests that GURPS over estimates the lethality of fires: lethal fire damage takes 3-4 minutes, not less than half a minute as happened for unprotected Will. It also over estimates the effectiveness of armor protection: death comes from "first degree respiratory burns" which means your lungs burn out.<br />
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Fire damage in GURPS should probably be reduced to 1d-2 or 1d-3, but being in or on fire should also be treated as an respiratory agent with an onset time of 5 seconds that does 1 bu, resisted by HT, with a symptom of -1 HT at 1/3 HP damage and -2 HT at 2/3 HP damage. Fire respiratory damage would also be cyclic for every 5 seconds as long as the victim is in or on fire.Mark Langsdorfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00301984145275679568noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1287550692312955328.post-963284984088324622017-07-10T06:28:00.002-07:002017-07-10T06:28:49.848-07:00New Dawn Session 22: July is not a Quiet Month<br /><b style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.4px;">Precis</b><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , "freeserif" , serif; font-size: 15.4px;">: The PCs plan to spend July retraining their army, but the Orcs have other plans.<br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.4px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , "freeserif" , serif; font-size: 15.4px;">The 22nd session of my GURPS Fantasy Mass Combat game <a href="http://newdawn.wikia.com/wiki/Empire_of_Night:_New_Dawn_Wiki" style="background-color: white; color: #228300; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.4px; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">New Dawn</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , "freeserif" , serif; font-size: 15.4px;"> was all about the difference between the plans you make and the events that occur. The PCs had decided to have a relatively quiet July, during which their troops could retrain and their army could expand. Sure, they intended to knock off a few Orc regiments in a neighboring countries, but their big focus was going to be retraining. Unfortunately, the orcs in a different set of neighboring countries had different plans, and the PCs were forced to respond to potential and actual orc incursions.<br />
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Cast of Characters</span></span></span></h3>
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<a href="http://noschoolgrognard.blogspot.com/search/label/New%20Dawn" style="background-color: white; color: #228300; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.4px; text-decoration-line: none;">New Dawn</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , "freeserif" , serif; font-size: 15.4px;"> is a troupe style game, with each player having two characters. One team primarily does military stuff; the other team has been doing delving and diplomacy but is branching out into military raids as the PCs become Mass Combat units in their own right.<br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.4px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15.4px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , "freeserif" , serif; font-size: 15.4px;">The PCs involved in the army were:<br />
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<ul><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , "freeserif" , serif; font-size: 15.4px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , "freeserif" , serif; font-size: 15.4px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , "freeserif" , serif; font-size: 15.4px;">
<li><a class="g-profile" data-gapiattached="true" data-gapiscan="true" data-onload="true" href="https://plus.google.com/115373610030621027923" style="color: #228300; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">+Uhuk of the Guard</a>'s <a href="http://newdawn.wikia.com/wiki/ND/Attivi_Valar" style="color: #228300; text-decoration-line: none;">Attivi Valar</a> - A budding sorcerer who's got tired of passive resistance.</li>
<li><a class="g-profile" data-gapiattached="true" data-gapiscan="true" data-onload="true" href="https://plus.google.com/116541461100903445865" style="color: #228300; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">+Eric Schmidt</a>'s <a href="http://newdawn.wikia.com/wiki/ND/Trahaern_ab_Owen" style="color: #228300; text-decoration-line: none;">Trahaern ab Owen</a> - A war leader and brewer who has been waiting for his chance to kill orcs.</li>
<li>Kiara Schmidt's<span style="font-size: 15.4px;"> <a href="http://newdawn.wikia.com/wiki/ND/Greex" style="color: #228300; font-size: 15.4px; text-decoration-line: none;">Greex</a> "Wrongway" - <a href="http://newdawn.wikia.com/wiki/ND/Kobolds" style="color: #228300; font-size: 15.4px; text-decoration-line: none;">Kobold</a> spymaster and thief determined to lead his people to freedom.</span></li>
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The Direct Action consisted of:<br />
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<li>+<a href="https://plus.google.com/101753663254677227591" style="color: #228300; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Christopher Russie</a>'s <a href="http://newdawn.wikia.com/wiki/ND/Sven" style="color: #228300; text-decoration-line: none;">Sven</a> Hurtigruten - An anti-authoritarian rabble-rouser turned cavalry general.</li>
<li><a class="g-profile" data-gapiattached="true" data-gapiscan="true" data-onload="true" href="https://plus.google.com/111733529135779555232" style="color: #228300; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">+Ben Zittere</a>'s <a href="http://newdawn.wikia.com/wiki/ND/Zarathras" style="color: #228300; text-decoration-line: none;">Zarathras</a> - A lone <a href="http://newdawn.wikia.com/wiki/ND/Wyrmling" style="color: #228300; text-decoration-line: none;">dragon</a> intent on fighting tyranny and making his kind more accepted by the world.</li>
<li><a class="g-profile" data-gapiattached="true" data-gapiscan="true" data-onload="true" href="https://plus.google.com/115413841072686813753" style="color: #228300; text-decoration-line: none;">+Kevin Smyth</a>'s <a href="http://newdawn.wikia.com/wiki/ND/Ariana_Rees" style="color: #228300; text-decoration-line: none;">Ariana</a> Rees - a human blacksmith and minor saint.</li>
<li><a class="g-profile" data-gapiattached="true" data-gapiscan="true" data-onload="true" href="https://plus.google.com/115373610030621027923" style="color: #228300; text-decoration-line: none;">+Uhuk of the Guard</a>'s <a href="http://newdawn.wikia.com/wiki/ND/Hloomawl" style="color: #228300; text-decoration-line: none;">Hloomawl</a> - minotaur princeling and mighty warrior.</li>
<li><a class="g-profile" data-gapiattached="true" data-gapiscan="true" data-onload="true" href="https://plus.google.com/116541461100903445865" style="color: #228300; text-decoration-line: none;">+Eric Schmidt</a>'s <a href="http://newdawn.wikia.com/wiki/ND/Nesta_Bowen" style="color: #228300; text-decoration-line: none;">Nesta</a> Bowen - a human master spy and swordswoman with a grudge against the orcs.</li>
<li>Kiara Schmidt's <a href="http://newdawn.wikia.com/wiki/ND/Nayla" style="color: #228300; text-decoration-line: none;">Nayla</a> - a supernaturally skilled archer.</li>
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+Kevin Smyth's <a href="http://newdawn.wikia.com/wiki/ND/Aisling" target="_blank">Aisling Mhic Muiris</a> - a Fae conwoman or possible ambassador - had a brief sequence.<br />
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<h3>
All Over the Map</h3>
At the end of June and the last session, the direct action team had used their flying boat to zip around the country, annihilating orc garrison companies in their fortresses and creating a local power vacuum. Some orcs in the neighboring country of Zerniless responded by advancing into Hanist and reconquering the fortress of Lubasser. Fleeing peasants arrived at the Liberation controlled fortress of Frederikvud on the 28th and a courier got the word to the PCs on the 30th. On July 1st, the tired and battered direct action team immediately flew to Frederickvud to reinforce the garrison there, and a contingent of light infantry and artillery that had just finished training moved out of the capitol to provide additional firepower. The Pegasii cavalry also moved out of Trahaern's army to provide aerial scouting. </span></span></span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-HU6zqn_J_Bs/WWOAemNu5UI/AAAAAAAACA4/sdyon38GwG4sDYmxTBx-dPTo60C5Gt-ygCLcBGAs/s1600/session22.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1028" data-original-width="1370" height="300" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-HU6zqn_J_Bs/WWOAemNu5UI/AAAAAAAACA4/sdyon38GwG4sDYmxTBx-dPTo60C5Gt-ygCLcBGAs/s400/session22.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Liberation armies in dark blue. Liberation air forces in<br />light blue. Liberation reinforcements in pastel blue.<br />Orc forces in red. Orc reinforcements in orange.<br />Nominally allied orc forces are green.</td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , "freeserif" , serif; font-size: 15.4px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , "freeserif" , serif; font-size: 15.4px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , "freeserif" , serif; font-size: 15.4px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , "freeserif" , serif; font-size: 15.4px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , "freeserif" , serif; font-size: 15.4px;"><br />
Meanwhile, on the northwest border with Menkgu and Venrike, Trahaern's army was facing off against half a regiment of orcs. Trahaern's old army could have smashed such a force without worry, but most of the field force had returned their depots for retraining and no one was sure how well the reduced force would do.</span></span></span></span></span></div>
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In the south, Aisling was overseeing the retraining and re-equipping of a large group of surrendered orcs. She was also suffering from the effects of the new variable mana system I had just introduced: mana levels were now changing randomly on a weekly basis across the continent, and local levels of high mana made Fae like Aisling suffer from Euphoria. At any rate, the leader of the orc forces, Colonel Rigar Gloomfang, approached her and pointed out that two of the garrisons that had been destroyed in the previous week were companies from his regiment, as were the last two orc garrisons in Hanist, and it would make more sense for him to order them to join the orc army than have them destroyed. Although this would add a significant number of dubiously loyal orcs to a force that was already dubiously loyal and more powerful than the local militia, Aisling agreed and couriers were sent out to recruit the orcs.<br />
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<h3>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , "freeserif" , serif; font-size: 15.4px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , "freeserif" , serif; font-size: 15.4px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , "freeserif" , serif; font-size: 15.4px;">
A Contemplative Interlude</span></span></span></h3>
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In the northeast, the PCs waited at Frederikvud. A pair of soldiers approached Nayla, and basically asked if the rumors that she was a demi-god were true, and if so, how did that happen and most importantly, how could the soldiers become demi-gods too? Nayla mostly demurred to answering the questions, because she didn't know the answers anyway, but the rest of the PCs weighed in with their opinions. At some point, the topic branched to magic items, with the various PCs offering a bunch of confusing and mostly wrong answers as to why they were getting magic items. It was a good little role-playing scene that exposed a bunch of the PCs' various personality quirks.<br />
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<h3>
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The Lubasser Front</span></span></span></h3>
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On the 2nd, an orc company with a preponderance of cavalry - including centaurs! - marched south at a leisurely pace, and eventually assaulted Frederikvud after dark on the 3rd. By that point, the PCs had nearly seven companies in place, commanded by Sven. The orc commander was quite skilled and had a bonus for fighting at night, but he was also heavily overnumbered and lacked air support. He took massive casualties in the first round of combat and retreated in the second round, but even so, only 10% of his force survived.</span></span></span></div>
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The PCs managed to capture a centaur sergeant and interrogate him, but he was less than helpful. The centaurs were vicious and cruel; they enjoyed hunting minotaurs and lizardmen and didn't want to be part of a future when they wouldn't be allowed to do that. Nesta eventually killed him out of annoyance but it did mean the PCs were going to have a problem with centaur prisoners in the future.</span></span></span></span></span></div>
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Sven was immediately going to follow up, but I pointed out it was close to 2 am and most of his troops had just spent four days on the road. They were willing to pursue the enemy, but they wanted to wait until morning. Sven relented and marched out the next morning, arriving at Lubasser in mid-afternoon on the 5th. The orcs had reinforced the Lubasser garrison with a second company. This one also had a very non-standard formation, with almost no cavalry but flying demonic imp scouts and a batch of kobold miners. Still, the garrison was outnumbered 3:1 and didn't have the advantage of darkness; Sven quickly breached the walls and conquered the place. A number of centaurs were captured, and there was a discussion about the difficulty of keeping superhumanly strong, smart, man-horse hybrids prisoner with the resources that the Liberation had available.<br />
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<h3>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , "freeserif" , serif; font-size: 15.4px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , "freeserif" , serif; font-size: 15.4px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , "freeserif" , serif; font-size: 15.4px;">
The Menkgu Front</span></span></span></h3>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , "freeserif" , serif; font-size: 15.4px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , "freeserif" , serif; font-size: 15.4px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , "freeserif" , serif; font-size: 15.4px;">
On the other side of the PC's territory, Trahaern was facing several companies of orcs. He decided to hold up and wait for more reinforcements. The orcs attempted a reconnaissance in force, but since Greex had a magic map that showed all enemy troop movements, Trahaern and Greex had plenty of time to prepare for the orcs' arrival. They ambushed the orcs outside of the Liberation controlled fortress of Gicunoocoo and sent them reeling. Less than 100 of the orcs survived to retreat to their fortress of Catonodo, and Trahaern followed up and overran the castle on July 5th.<br />
<br />
On Trahaern's left flank, another regiment of orcs was beginning to assemble. Fortunately, he would have a few days to prepare, and more allied reinforcements were coming.<br />
<br />
We had covered a lot at this point, so I ended the game here.<br />
<br />
</span></span></span><br />
<h3>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , "freeserif" , serif; font-size: 15.4px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , "freeserif" , serif; font-size: 15.4px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , "freeserif" , serif; font-size: 15.4px;">
Review of Play</span></span></span></h3>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , "freeserif" , serif; font-size: 15.4px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , "freeserif" , serif; font-size: 15.4px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , "freeserif" , serif; font-size: 15.4px;">
This was a pleasantly simple session to plan for: I simply figured out what the orcs would do with their available information and had them do that, while the PCs made their own plans. Gameplay resulted from the clash of plans. It might not have been as tactically fraught as dealing with huge orc armies during the liberation of Hanist in June, but it was amusing and a bit of a breather.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-VIt_pNP_7q4/WWJFHdLJFWI/AAAAAAAACAc/i6Loh8P5008et7pj7WNIx_cfFtzu4tEoACLcBGAs/s1600/session22b.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="681" data-original-width="849" height="256" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-VIt_pNP_7q4/WWJFHdLJFWI/AAAAAAAACAc/i6Loh8P5008et7pj7WNIx_cfFtzu4tEoACLcBGAs/s320/session22b.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Map with weather and mana level icons.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I did introduce two new subsystems in this session: changing mana levels and explicitly changing weather. Both worked out pretty well. Mana levels require that I roll on some tables every week or so of game time, which isn't too much of a hassle. Weather required a daily roll on a table and some tedious update work so that there were icons for the PCs to see, but I wrote a macro after the game to automate all that.<br />
<br />
The role-playing scene with Nayla and the question of demi-godhood had been something I wanted to do for a while, but it kept getting put off in favor of other things. It had a little less impact than I would have liked, but it was still a good little scene.<br />
<br />
<h3>
What Next?</h3>
Next week, Aisling will deal with the consequences of inviting 700 orcs of dubious loyalty into her castle. We'll also introduce Ben's and Chris' second PCs, who are currently another nymph and an ogre priest, respectively. It should be interesting.<br />
<br />
I have an idea for a micro-dungeon in Venrike that will take up a session or two and may result in the deaths of a few PCs. We'll see. That's in the future, though.</span></span></span></div>
Mark Langsdorfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00301984145275679568noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1287550692312955328.post-21878905254191731252017-07-05T14:14:00.000-07:002017-07-05T14:15:35.392-07:00New Dawn Session 21: The Grimstut Case<b>Precis</b>: The PCs investigate the death of an ally.<br />
<br />
The 21st session of my GURPS Fantasy Mass Combat game <a href="http://newdawn.wikia.com/wiki/Empire_of_Night:_New_Dawn_Wiki" target="_blank">New Dawn</a> mostly focused on a murder investigation. The orcs had counterattack and retaken the liberated city of Grimstut, and Diane Behm, the rebel Countess of Grimstut, had been caught in the city and forced to hide for several days. She was discovered by collaborators, betrayed to the orcs, and executetd. The PCs decided to find the collaborators and punish them.<br />
<br />
This plotline arose from a throw away little bit of fluff that I added to the game to help remind the PCs that the orcs are jerks. I asked if anyone was interested in investigating it, and everyone was, so I decided to make an adventure out of it.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Cast of Characters</h3>
<a href="http://noschoolgrognard.blogspot.com/search/label/New%20Dawn">New Dawn</a>
is a troupe style game, with each player having two characters. One
team primarily does military stuff; the other team has been doing
delving and diplomacy but is branching out into military raids as the
PCs become Mass Combat units in their own right.<br />
<br />
Raven dropped out the game suddenly, so Ben got promoted to player and took over Zarathras.<br />
<br />
The PCs involved in the investigation were:<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<ul>
<li><a class="g-profile" data-gapiattached="true" data-gapiscan="true" data-onload="true" href="https://plus.google.com/115373610030621027923" target="_blank">+Uhuk of the Guard</a>'s <a href="http://newdawn.wikia.com/wiki/ND/Attivi_Valar">Attivi Valar</a> - A budding sorcerer who's got tired of passive resistance.</li>
<li><a class="g-profile" data-gapiattached="true" data-gapiscan="true" data-onload="true" href="https://plus.google.com/116541461100903445865" target="_blank">+Eric Schmidt</a>'s <a href="http://newdawn.wikia.com/wiki/ND/Trahaern_ab_Owen">Trahaern ab Owen</a> - A war leader and brewer who has been waiting for his chance to kill orcs.</li>
<li><a class="g-profile" data-gapiattached="true" data-gapiscan="true" data-onload="true" href="https://plus.google.com/115413841072686813753">+Kevin Smyth</a>'s <a href="http://newdawn.wikia.com/wiki/ND/Ariana_Rees">Ariana</a> Rees - a human blacksmith and minor saint.</li>
<li>Kiara Schmidt's <a href="http://newdawn.wikia.com/wiki/ND/Greex">Greex</a> "Wrongway" - <a href="http://newdawn.wikia.com/wiki/ND/Kobolds">Kobold</a> spymaster and thief determined to lead his people to freedom.</li>
<li>+<a href="https://plus.google.com/101753663254677227591" target="_blank">Christopher Russie</a>'s <a href="http://newdawn.wikia.com/wiki/ND/Sven">Sven</a> Hurtigruten - An anti-authoritarian rabble-rouser turned cavalry general.</li>
<li><a class="g-profile" href="https://plus.google.com/111733529135779555232" target="_blank">+Ben Zittere</a>'s <a href="http://newdawn.wikia.com/wiki/ND/Zarathras">Zarathras</a> - A lone <a href="http://newdawn.wikia.com/wiki/ND/Wyrmling">dragon</a> intent on fighting tyranny and making his kind more accepted by the world.</li>
</ul>
Attivi, Trahaern, and Greex continued on to command the war effort in the northwest.<br />
<br />
The Direct Action team of Ariana, Sven, and Zarathras were joined by<br />
<ul>
<li><a class="g-profile" data-gapiattached="true" data-gapiscan="true" data-onload="true" href="https://plus.google.com/115373610030621027923">+Uhuk of the Guard</a>'s <a href="http://newdawn.wikia.com/wiki/ND/Hloomawl">Hloomawl</a> - minotaur princeling and mighty warrior.</li>
<li><a class="g-profile" data-gapiattached="true" data-gapiscan="true" data-onload="true" href="https://plus.google.com/116541461100903445865">+Eric Schmidt</a>'s <a href="http://newdawn.wikia.com/wiki/ND/Nesta_Bowen">Nesta</a> Bowen - a human master spy and swordswoman with a grudge against the orcs.</li>
<li>Kiara Schmidt's <a href="http://newdawn.wikia.com/wiki/ND/Nayla">Nayla</a> - a supernaturally skilled archer.</li>
</ul>
They spent the last bit of the session beating up orcs.<br />
<br />
<h3>
</h3>
<h3>
Writing a Murder Mystery</h3>
I have a copy of <a href="http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/books/mysteries/" target="_blank">GURPS Mysteries</a>, so I read through it for advice. The most useful bit was to make sure that the PCs always had an obvious clue to follow and to not include too many red herrings. I wrote up some notes for the mystery, which I can summarize here:<br />
<ol>
<li>Diane Behm had been found by accident when Lium, a collaborator, recognized her daughter Yulia as Yulia left a safehouse.</li>
<li>Yulia had an inkling that she had been spotted by one of four people: Lium, a man in a distinctive hat; Renee, a blonde in a red dress; Ulvik, a known collaborator with an orc symbol on his cloak brooch; and Rath, a lamed kobold. That gave the PCs five obvious suspects to find and interrogate (it would be easy to clear Yulia, as Diane's assistant and other child would vouch that she loved her mother too much to betray her).</li>
<li>The PCs would use their skills and the aid of their troops to find the other four suspects and interrogate them. Ulvik would claim to be a secret ally of Diane who had put a water canteen at the safehouse exit, a fact that could be verified by talking to Yulia or Diane's assistant. Rath would have left town and not to know anything about Yulia. Renee and Lium would lie with stories that contradicted Ulvik's; assuming that the PCs believed Ulvik, they would know that Renee and Lium were lying.</li>
<li>I would also introduce Karl Luffare as a crime boss who was at the scene during the orc raid on the safehouse. Karl would be hard to find. He'd been the one who Lium told and who in turn told the orcs, and when the PCs started investigating, Karl would kidnap Diane Behm's grandchildren and hold them hostage.</li>
<li>The investigation would end with the PCs confronting Luffare.</li>
</ol>
When I wrote it, it looked reasonably solid, though the bridge from finding out that Luffare was the villain to finding out that he had taken the children hostage was a little weak. As usual, things didn't work out exactly as I'd planned.<br />
<br />
I knew that while this looked like a fairly straightforward plot to me, it had a bunch of moving parts and new characters in it. I created a map in MapTools that had tokens and descriptions for all the NPCs and hid most of them. That way, I could reveal them as the PCs found out about them, and hopefully having the tokens as a reference would mostly keep the PCs from getting too confused.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-DLh2aH4pjq8/WV1VkkNsjJI/AAAAAAAAB_c/2iJEws4X0eUEuSTiPYfKLvojv1X5z_rKwCLcBGAs/s1600/session21b.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="578" data-original-width="750" height="246" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-DLh2aH4pjq8/WV1VkkNsjJI/AAAAAAAAB_c/2iJEws4X0eUEuSTiPYfKLvojv1X5z_rKwCLcBGAs/s320/session21b.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">NPC reference image, showing all the NPCs encountered in the investigation</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
<h3>
Fixating on the Villain Too Early</h3>
The opening sequence of the mystery went well: I introduced Yulia and Diane's assistant Brianna and established that Yulia was an entitled brat who blamed Trahaern for her mother's death, while Brianna was mildly helpful. Uhuk immediately put Yulia on the potential suspect list, and everyone else agreed to investigate the other potential subjects. But first, they wanted to do some hands-on investigating of their own.<br />
<br />
They scoured the neighborhood of the safehouse for an informant. I pointed out that they were probably not the best investigators for a bad part of town, but they tried anyway. Greex found a kobold to talk to and Attivi and Sven found someone else. After a little friendly questioning, I was improvising answers. They got a little more information on the suspects, including the detail that Rath was routinely beaten by orcs and probably wouldn't talk to them willingly, but they also got the detail that Luffare had been at the scene of the raid. Which was a good detail, as it established him as another potential suspect, but then I added the detail that the orcs had paid him off. Which was certainly too much information too early, and the PCs immediately fixated on him and I had to do some work to get them to investigate the other suspects.<br />
<br />
<h3>
PCs Cheat, but Don't Use Their Resources</h3>
I eventually pointed out the PCs could search for multiple people at a time, but they only had a few people with Streetwise or other skills useful for finding people so that wasn't true. They were also kind of reluctant or forgetful and didn't really take advantage of the literal army of people they had access to, which would have improved the odds of finding people. And when they heard that Rath left town, they didn't make any effort to track him down, which I thought was a little weird because Sven had a flying horse that could have overtaken a limping kobold on foot in less than an hour.<br />
<br />
With a little prompting, the PCs found Lium and Ulvik and brought them in for questioning. <br />
<br />
One thing that Sven did have was a helmet of mind reading. Mind-reading is one of those abilities that destroys suspense in mysteries, and the usual solution in role-playing games is to cripple mind-reading. I decided not to do that, and it meant that it was easy to verify that Ulvik was truthful when they finally questioned him: Sven read his mind and his surface thoughts matched what he was saying. Over time, I managed to find ways of expressing NPC's surface thoughts so that Sven's mind-reading was useful but not overwhelming, but at first, it did a good job of destroying the suspense of the mystery. A little annoying, but I think it would be more annoying to say to a player "your character spent resources on a powerful ability that I won't let you use because it ruins my planned plot."<br />
<br />
With Ulvik's reliability unquestioned, it was pretty obvious that Lium was lying. Lium was detained. He tried to send a message to Luffare, but the PCs did a pretty good job of cutting that off - and of course, a clumsily worded message was pretty suspicious, too. Lium eventually got boxed in enough that the PCs got an confession from him: he had spotted Yulia by luck, told Luffare, and Luffare passed the information onto the orcs.<br />
<br />
The PCs had solved the important parts of the mystery. Unfortunately, at this point I realized I hadn't really established a way to get from "Luffare and Lium are clearly guilty" to "And we know where Luffare is." I improvised by having Brianna want to go back and check on Diane Behm's sick grandkids, who Luffare was holding hostage at this point.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Solving Problems with Magic</h3>
When the PCs escorted Brianna to the hovel where the grandkids were still in hiding, they spotted that the door had been forced and sloppily replaced on its hinges. They sent Brianna back (and Greex retreated to a space a couple of blocks over to watch everyone's back because he is a serious coward) and Ariana pushed the door open.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-YVbaK6lnd8M/WV1VkrVBAVI/AAAAAAAAB_g/o-0WH1x9jUAso9UzaF8gGTw-ZoDgpRzJQCLcBGAs/s1600/session21c.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="619" data-original-width="552" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-YVbaK6lnd8M/WV1VkrVBAVI/AAAAAAAAB_g/o-0WH1x9jUAso9UzaF8gGTw-ZoDgpRzJQCLcBGAs/s320/session21c.png" width="285" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Attivi puts almost everyone to sleep, and Trahaern dispatches two<br />goons by slamming them into walls with the shockwave of his<br />magic halberd.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Luffare and his brother had knives to the grandkids' throats, and other goons were holding Behm's daughter-in-law and her maid hostage. Ariana immediately offered herself up as a hostage, while Uhuk started looking things up in Sorcery and Powers to determine if Attivi could modify his existing single-target sleep spell to take out a room. I pointed out that even the most quietly cast spell would trigger the villains' Waits, but Ariana and Sven worked to try to distract the villains.<br />
<br />
Ariana took off most of her armor and went into the room. As she was swapping places with the granddaughter and Sven was trying to be distracting with Fast-Talk, Attivi cast his spell. Two of the hostage takers were too distracted to stab their victims immediately and both succumbed to the spell. Ariana and the maid took glancing blows to their necks (which Ariana could trivially heal with her healing prayers). Sven and Trahaern charged into the room, using their powerful magic weapons to slam the remaining goons into the walls. In literally seconds, the situation was resolved. It was a very impressive show of force by Attivi, who generally doesn't do much and in this situation took out 5 goons by himself.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Appointing a New Count</h3>
Kevin had asked if I had meant to set up a succession crisis: Diane Behm was survived by an adult daughter, a minor adopted son, and minor grandchildren of both sexes through her now deceased elder son. I hadn't, but I didn't want to lock the PCs into any particular pattern of inheritance either. All of Diane's family had issues, but if the PCs wanted to go with primogeniture or agnatic inheritance or whatever then they had that option. None of the options were particularly great options, but they had options.<br />
<br />
As Yulia was an entitled brat who had already expressed her intent to work against them in Council, they rejected her. There was a brief discussion of appointing one of the children, but they decided that would mean a regency and it made more sense to just appoint any potential regent as Count. As Brianna was the only trustworthy and mildly competent person they'd dealt with in Grimstut, so she got the job.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Mopping Up</h3>
Trahaern took the army north at this point, heading for the Menkgu border. The plan was to work counterclockwise through the remaining orc forces with parts of the main army. The rest of the main army would be left behind to retrain in July so that a huge, professional, and skilled army could move into the forests and mountains of Zerniless in August (and face the 10,000 strong Orc legion they suspected was between them and their potential allies in the Fae Court). Meanwhile, the direct team took the Flying Boat and beat up a bunch of orcs in isolated garrisons, increasing Resistance control of Hanist.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Nl4MHCz657U/WV0UEk9Y-7I/AAAAAAAAB_I/g3lTpXLeiUERmRtyl0shDhhEdOW06qdCgCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/session21.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Nl4MHCz657U/WV0UEk9Y-7I/AAAAAAAAB_I/g3lTpXLeiUERmRtyl0shDhhEdOW06qdCgCK4BGAYYCw/s400/session21.png" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Trahaern advances the main army in blue;<br />
the direct action team moves in light blue;<br />
Orcs advance in red.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
This worked ideally, but there were some minor complications. A group of orcs, survivors of the Battle of Ravenrock Bridge, made a night attack on some Resistance militia west of Ravenrock. The orcs were planning on linking up with other survivors that had retreated to Berger. Unfortunately, they had launched their break-out at the worst time, just as the main army was marching up the road to Berger. A quick forced march and the army caught the orcs napping after their battle. Resistance scouts then reported that the Berger orcs had marched south, so Trahaern took the army north, dispersed those orcs, and went ahead and crossed the bridge to Berger and assaulted the citadel there. Trahaern's diminished army still had over 1000 troops in it, including pegasii and miners, and they trounced the remaining 100 orcs of the garrison pretty heavily.<br />
<br />
The other minor complication was that while the direct action team could successfully smash a bunch of orcs in a castle, they couldn't hold the castle or even arrange for the local Resistance to take it. Instead, they threw out the orcs and left the castles abandoned. In the areas where there were no other orcs to do anything about it, this strategy worked fine, but the orcs of the Zerniless eventually moved down to investigate and reoccupied a castle in the northeast.<br />
<br />
We ended the session there, with the PCs receiving word that Lubasser had been retaken and Trahaern's army taking a break in preparation for dealing with 600 orcs that were massing in Menkgu.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Review of Play</h3>
This was a very different session from most of them, obviously. I had never really run a murder mystery with the online group before, so it was great that I got to justify my purchase of GURPS Mysteries. There was also an excellent balance of role-playing, individual PC action, and Mass Combat: the PCs got to talk and complain about the villains, use their skills to find them, and then fight several small battles to clear out the orcs.<br />
<br />
The mystery could have been stronger. I shouldn't have made Luffare such a focus so early, and I should have plotted a better transition from "Luffare is the villain!" to "Luffare has taken hostages!" It worked out, but it would have been a lot more enjoyable had I plotted it just a little better.<br />
<br />
<h3>
What Next?</h3>
The next session is going to consist of people reacting to events. The PCs have reached some orcs that are a little less lazy than some of the others they've dealt with, and those orcs are going things like retaking abandoned castles. The PCs are going to react to that, and the orcs are going to respond to what the PCs do. There may be some surprises here and there, but I that's mostly what's going to happen.<br />
<br />
I'm working on some notes for a microdungeon in Venrike, but I don't think that's going to show up next session. I also have some notes for a long-awaited role-playing scene where a couple of common soldiers react to the rumors that Nayla is a demi-goddess, but that keeps getting pushed off in favor of other things.<br />
<br />Mark Langsdorfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00301984145275679568noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1287550692312955328.post-57864869619988190242017-07-04T06:45:00.001-07:002017-07-04T06:52:12.591-07:00New Dawn Session 9: Enter the Villain<b>Precis</b>: The PCs fight a powerful sorcerer.<br />
<br />
I ran the ninth session of <a href="http://newdawn.wikia.com/wiki/Empire_of_Night:_New_Dawn_Wiki" target="_blank">New Dawn</a> a few months ago. It was a pretty short session, nust dealing with the fight between the PCs And the evil sorcerer general Arcane, which didn't last as long as I expected. I had nothing else prepared, so I ended the session early.<br />
<br />
I wrote about half this report immediately after the session and then sat on it. Now it's a bit more of a retrospective.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Cast of Characters</h3>
<a href="http://noschoolgrognard.blogspot.com/search/label/New%20Dawn" target="_blank">New Dawn</a> is a troupe style game, with each player having two characters. One team primarily does military stuff; the other team has been doing delving and diplomacy.<br />
<h4>
The Delvers</h4>
<ul>
<li><a class="g-profile" href="https://plus.google.com/115373610030621027923" target="_blank">+Uhuk of the Guard</a>'s <a href="http://newdawn.wikia.com/wiki/ND/Hloomawl" target="_blank">Hloomawl</a>, a minotaur princeling and mighty warrior.</li>
<li><a class="g-profile" href="https://plus.google.com/116541461100903445865" target="_blank">+Eric Schmidt</a>'s <a href="http://newdawn.wikia.com/wiki/ND/Nesta_Bowen" target="_blank">Nesta</a> Bowen, a human master spy with a grudge against the orcs.</li>
<li><a class="g-profile" href="https://plus.google.com/115413841072686813753" target="_blank">+Kevin Smyth</a>'s <a href="http://newdawn.wikia.com/wiki/ND/Ariana_Rees" target="_blank">Ariana</a> Rees, a human blacksmith and minor saint.</li>
<li><a class="g-profile" href="https://plus.google.com/100396225121044993077" target="_blank">+Eilmyn Davidson</a>'s <a href="http://newdawn.wikia.com/wiki/ND/Skyler_Therris" target="_blank">Skyler</a> Therris, a human reprobate, warrior, and general.</li>
<li>Kiara Schmidt's <a href="http://newdawn.wikia.com/wiki/ND/Nayla" target="_blank">Nayla</a>, a supernaturally skilled archer.</li>
</ul>
<br />
<h3>
Sacrifice Denied</h3>
At the end of the <a href="http://noschoolgrognard.blogspot.com/2017/03/new-dawn-session-8-going-gets-tough.html" target="_blank">previous session</a>, the PCs were in the process of burglarizing the home of the evil sorcerer general Arcane. To their misfortune, Arcane had magical wards set up, which they had tripped. Arcane was also capable of teleportation, and has returned and hit them with a powerful spell that made them incapable of action while she read their minds.<br />
<br />
The key elements of my portrayal of Arcane was that she was extremely arrogant and a sadist. She wasn't going to take the PCs seriously until they did some damage to her, and until then, she was going to toy with them. Having decided the PCs weren't a threat, she offered to let them live if they were willing to flee like cowards.<br />
<br />
Of course, PCs being PCs, they wanted to fight. I pointed out that Nayla was badly wounded and Attivi was nearly dead, and that a tactical retreat, even if feigned, might be in order. But they were insistent that the time to fight was now, and Ariana charged forward, intending to slam Arcane back into the library and have Skyler shut the door, so that Arcane and Ariana could duel while the wounded healed with potions.<br />
<br />
Arcane mostly dodged Ariana's charge, but it left her out of position and Skyler managed to close the door on her. Arcane was facing north with Ariana behind to the south. Arcane mocked Ariana for a bit, effortlessly parried her attacks without turning around, and then teleported back to where everyone else was. Ariana's attempted sacrifice came to naught.<br />
<h3>
<br />Six armed Cpellcasting Cuisinart</h3>
The next several rounds went poorly for the PCs. Arcane was a Weapon Master with two dancing swords who also had 360 degree vision and a compartmentalized mind. She could launch four sword attacks while casting a spell and defending herself against whatever the PCs tried with a pair of magical, invisible arms holding invisible shields. She was also in extremely heavy armor, so even their infrequent lucky shots or meteoric iron weapons pretty much bounced off her armor.<br />
<br />
Even so, Arcane's attacks were mostly ineffectual. It takes a lot of firepower to overwhelm a PC's defenses, especially if all the attacks are coming from a single source and the PC can apply a retreat bonus against all of them. She did manage to get another hit in against Nayla, but mostly Ariana, Nesta, and Skyler blocked her attacks.<br />
<br />
I played up Arcane's arrogance and overconfidence throughout this. She didn't believe the Resistance was a threat, she thought she could take on all five PCs at once, and she figured after that she would spend a couple of days organizing the orcs and putting down the rebellion. She told the PCs of her plans and mocked them for their ineffectiveness against her.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Things Don't Go as Planned</h3>
Eventually the melee PCs managed to force Arcane away from Nayla, and she started firing meteoric arrows into Arcane's eyeslits. Arcane did have some armor for her eyes, but an unlucky dodge roll meant she still took a hit. Badly wounded and impaired, she launched her signature spell: a rolling cloud of white mist that was a persistent life leach effect, intended to kill all of them while healing her. Unfortunately, she couldn't set up the attack and teleport far enough away to prevent Nayla from shooting her in the other eye with a lucky shot.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ZPC6nAJ05sw/WVuaD2wpubI/AAAAAAAAB-4/PSJ07HB7UmQHpHxgAQ3ln-W5hQ_3ofjxgCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/Session9.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="345" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ZPC6nAJ05sw/WVuaD2wpubI/AAAAAAAAB-4/PSJ07HB7UmQHpHxgAQ3ln-W5hQ_3ofjxgCK4BGAYYCw/s400/Session9.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Arcane duels the PCs as Nayla and Attivi bombard her with ranged attacks.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
This was slightly frustrating for me. As the PCs would <a href="http://noschoolgrognard.blogspot.com/2017/05/new-dawn-session-14-16-secrets-of.html" target="_blank">later discover</a>, Nayla was a demi-god of some sort, and certain people in the know, such as Arcane, would recognize that fact when Nayla used her imbuement powers. But in this fight, for some reason, Nayla didn't use any imbued attacks. There was supposed to be a dramatic reveal that Nayla was something special and that it was related to some kind of ward that hadn't been breached, but that didn't happen. So a useful clue for setting up my ongoing story was lost because the PCs didn't cooperate.<br />
<br />
Arcane's white mist of leeching death spell wasn't healing her as fast as it needed, and with her eyes shot out, she was mostly dead meat. Skyler used his signature weapon with enhanced knockback to hit her three times, sending her flying to the edge of the tor that they were fighting on. I figured that since Arcane wasn't going to accomplish anything in the fight, and it was dramatic and amusing this way, that I might as well redraw the map slightly and have her get sent over the end of the tor, so she could bounce her way down to her death in the castle courtyard. This wasn't a case of <a href="http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NeverFoundTheBody" target="_blank">Never Found the Body</a>: Arcane was very, very dead and her corpse was lying in the courtyard, surrounded by friendly soldiers. I just wanted a more dramatic send-off.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Answers Lead to More Questions</h3>
The PCs went back down to the courtyard and examined Arcane's corpse. It was pretty battered, but they removed the helmet. Arcane had been an extremely beautiful blonde with delicate features and pointed ears: almost certainly an elf. This immediately raised the question if she was a renegade elf in Imperial service, or if all the Luminals and masked nobility were actually elfs?<br />
<br />
They poked around her villa some more, finding some books on magic written in an unknown script that resembled the Squallite and Fae scripts but was clearly different (much like the Hebrew and Arabic scripts are related to each other). They couldn't do much with that, but it was another bit of evidence for the "Luminals are elfs" theory.<br />
<br />
They also found some nameplates in the common tongue, and discovered that Arcane was actually named Whitemist, and that "Arcane" was the title for an archmage. This didn't have a lot of bearing on the plot, but it reinforced my theme that the Resistance knew so little about the Luminals that they didn't even know their names or titles. Skyler pointed out that "Whitemist" was not a very scary name, and Attivi intuited that white was the Luminal color for death, so the name might have been more accurately translated as "Deathmist."<br />
<br />
I hadn't prepared anything after this fight, so we ended the game at this point after about 3 hours of play time.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Edging Toward GM Burn-Out</h3>
I was getting really frustrated with the campaign at this point. I was putting a lot of effort into the game, and aside from Kevin, the players were not really engaging with it. It had the potential to be a really amazing, epic campaign, and there were some cool things that I wanted to do in the future that would engage me even if the players were less interested, but I was afraid I was going to just give up before we got to any of those stories.<br />
<br />
Fortunately, we powered through to Stinecrice, which was the first of the really interesting setpieces I had planned. The game has been consistently good since then, despite some shuffling off the players. I'm no longer worried about burning out for a while, but it was touch and go for a bit there.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Review of Play</h3>
It's always hard, introducing a big solo villain. There's a fine line between push-over and unstoppable death machine. On paper, Arcane looked more like an unstoppable death machine, but in play, she was very stoppable. A huge part of the problem there was that I really misread the rules for switching Sorcery powers, so several of her nastier abilities should have persisted longer than they did and I should have been freer with switching out her spells as the situation demanded.<br />
<br />
Another difficulty was that I didn't have a good sense of how powerful a high level sorcerer should be, and just kind of winged her spell effects. I've since done some math, and Arcane should have been much more powerful than she was. That just means the next Luminal will be much more powerful.<br />
<br />
It wasn't really a bad thing to have a stoppable monster for the first big villain to show up. She was dangerous enough that the PCs were scared without being utterly destroyed. It would have been nice to kill a PC, to really put the fear into the players, but I don't have a group that would necessarily react to that with anything but despair and complaints about unfun! Which is sad sometimes, but you game with the group you have and not the group that John Wick claims he has.<br />
<br />
I was bummed that Arcane didn't get to shout "What!? No! The Wards hold! You cannot be here!" before turning the full force of her destructive power on Nayla. At the time, it would have been as confusing as heck, and it would have set up the theme for when the demons at Stinecrice did the same thing. Also, it was a great line that I spent some time polishing. But as I've said here and there, this is a collaborative story-telling experience, not a novel that I'm reading to the players. A lot of the time, the PCs don't do what I want. I adapt and respond to what they do, not what I thought they would do or what I wanted them to do. That's important to me, because it means the game isn't a <a href="http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Railroading" target="_blank">railroad</a>.<br />
<h3>
What Next?</h3>
Focus shifted over the next couple of sessions to the army group that was tangling with orcs in central Hanist. I hope to write up what I remember of those sessions in the next few weeks.Mark Langsdorfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00301984145275679568noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1287550692312955328.post-18607333892111485592017-06-24T05:52:00.001-07:002017-06-24T05:58:26.683-07:00New Dawn Sessions 17-20: The Liberation of Hanist<b>Precis</b>: Two new players are introduced as the PCs in my Fantasy Mass Combat game finally liberate their home nation by defeating two massive orc armies.<br />
<br />
I've been running my GURPS Fantasy Mass Combat game <a href="http://newdawn.wikia.com/wiki/Empire_of_Night:_New_Dawn_Wiki" target="_blank">New Dawn</a> for the last six months. There's been some changes in the player roster, but we're mostly settled down again and having a good time.<br />
<br />
The last four sessions have focused on the final elimination of the orc threat from Hanist, which has taken a surprisingly long time. I thought it would take two sessions, but it's been four and could go to five.<br />
<br />
<h3 style="background-color: white; font-family: "Times New Roman", Times, FreeSerif, serif; margin: 0px; position: relative;">
Cast of Characters</h3>
<a href="http://noschoolgrognard.blogspot.com/search/label/New%20Dawn">New Dawn</a> is a troupe style game, with each player having two characters. One team primarily does military stuff; the other team has been doing delving and diplomacy but is branching out into military raids as the PCs become Mass Combat units in their own right.<br />
<br />
The Army Team is usually<br />
<ul>
<li><a class="g-profile" href="https://plus.google.com/115373610030621027923" target="_blank">+Uhuk of the Guard</a>'s <a href="http://newdawn.wikia.com/wiki/ND/Attivi_Valar">Attivi Valar</a> - A budding sorcerer who's got tired of passive resistance.</li>
<li><a class="g-profile" href="https://plus.google.com/116541461100903445865" target="_blank">+Eric Schmidt</a>'s <a href="http://newdawn.wikia.com/wiki/ND/Trahaern_ab_Owen">Trahaern ab Owen</a> - A war leader and brewer who has been waiting for his chance to kill orcs.</li>
<li><a class="g-profile" href="https://plus.google.com/115413841072686813753" target="_blank">+Kevin Smyth</a>'s <a href="http://newdawn.wikia.com/wiki/ND/Aisling_Mhic_Muiris">Aisling Mhic Muiris</a> - A Sidhe war-leader and diplomat sent by the <a href="http://newdawn.wikia.com/wiki/ND/Fae_Court">Fae Court</a> to aid the Resistance.</li>
<ul>
<li>Gharza Brokentooth - An orc sergeant and leader of some routed orcs</li>
<li>Rigar Gloomfang - An orc colonel and leader of other routed orcs</li>
</ul>
<li>Kiara Schmidt's <a href="http://newdawn.wikia.com/wiki/ND/Greex">Greex</a> "Wrongway" - <a href="http://newdawn.wikia.com/wiki/ND/Kobolds">Kobold</a> spymaster and thief determined to lead his people to freedom.</li>
<ul>
<li>Greex "Toadstool" and Brula "Bignose" - Two kobolds seeking justice</li>
</ul>
</ul>
The army team only has 4 members because the new players haven't created their second set of characters.<br />
<br />
The Covert Action/Delving/Diplomacy/Direct Action team is usually<br />
<ul>
<li>+<a href="https://plus.google.com/101753663254677227591" target="_blank">Christopher Russie</a>'s <a href="http://newdawn.wikia.com/wiki/ND/Sven">Sven</a> Hurtigruten - An anti-authoritarian rabble-rouser turned cavalry general</li>
<li>Christopher Russie's <a href="http://newdawn.wikia.com/wiki/ND/Himmel">Himmel Detfingers</a> - A braggart captain.</li>
<li><a class="g-profile" href="https://plus.google.com/115373610030621027923">+Uhuk of the Guard</a>'s <a href="http://newdawn.wikia.com/wiki/ND/Hloomawl">Hloomawl</a> - minotaur princeling and mighty warrior.</li>
<li><a class="g-profile" href="https://plus.google.com/116541461100903445865">+Eric Schmidt</a>'s <a href="http://newdawn.wikia.com/wiki/ND/Nesta_Bowen">Nesta</a> Bowen - a human master spy with a grudge against the orcs.</li>
<li>Raven's <a href="http://newdawn.wikia.com/wiki/ND/Michael_Jones">Mikael</a> Orna - a Tzavarim archer.</li>
<li>Raven's <a href="http://newdawn.wikia.com/wiki/ND/Zarathras">Zarathras</a> - A lone <a href="http://newdawn.wikia.com/wiki/ND/Wyrmling">dragon</a> intent on fighting tyranny and making his kind more accepted by the world.</li>
<li><a class="g-profile" href="https://plus.google.com/115413841072686813753">+Kevin Smyth</a>'s <a href="http://newdawn.wikia.com/wiki/ND/Ariana_Rees">Ariana</a> Rees - a human blacksmith and minor saint.</li>
<li>Kiara Schmidt's <a href="http://newdawn.wikia.com/wiki/ND/Nayla">Nayla</a> -a supernaturally skilled archer.</li>
</ul>
Both teams were present in these sessions, switching in and out as we focused on various things.<br />
<br />
In session 20, Ben Zittere joined us and played some of the NPCs. I was not certain that having someone else play some of my PCs was going to work, but it turned out to be really fun.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Resting Up, Making Plans</h3>
After the previous sessions, the players decided that they would take a break until the end of May in-game. This would allow them to give their tired armies a break, reorganize them, and let the first batch of new recruits finish training and report for duty. I warned them that the orcs would take the opportunity to do some movement of their own, but they said they were fine with that.<br />
<br />
By this point in the game, I was beginning to feel that the PCs weren't being challenged enough fighting a couple of orc garrison companies at a time. My original notes for the game had a very vague plan of having the PCs fight partial companies, then lone companies, then groups of companies, then regiments, then legions as they worked their way up the <a href="http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SortingAlgorithmOfEvil">Sorting Algorithm of Evil</a>. For some reason, I decided that was a a bad plan and skipped past the regiments step to groups of regiments.<br />
<br />
I started by creating a new map of the entire western theater of the war. The new map was at a large enough scale that individual villages and orc strongholds disappeared: all that mattered were counties and orc fortresses. Then I plotted out some movement for the orcs: about 2000 orcs in the northern half of the country moved to northern citadel of Landzby, while 3500 orcs in the south moved into the fortress of Rundbord. I generated commanders for the orcs - the northern orcs under Colonel Rolg were cursed with a Megalomaniac Lazy Bully with so-so strategic skills, while the southern orcs under Colonel Prulo had a mostly sane and defensive minded commander. The northern orcs had access to better roads and learned about the PCs' takeover of the capitol first, so even though their commander was lazy, they assembled first and were ready to move out on June 1st; the southern orcs weren't assembled until the 7th and didn't move out until the 11th.<br />
<br />
The great thing about doing all this was that the orcs had plans that were established before I knew what the PCs were going to do. They weren't necessarily good plans, but they were plans. The northern orcs were going to make a leisurely march down to Ravenrock, which was still in orcish hands at the time, and cross the river on June 5th, besiege Elverum, and wipe out the Resistance. On the 11th, the southern orcs were going to leave Rundbord, besiege Grimstut on the 13th, and move up to Kristinsund by the 15th, with plans to hold there. If the northern orcs had wiped out the Resistance, the rebellion would be over, and if not, the southern orcs would hopefully be able to defend the Elverum-Kristinsund bridge, with heavy casualties. If the Resistance moved to fast and had forces in Grimstut, the orcs would fortify south of Grimstut and let the PCs attack them across that river instead.<br />
<br />
My assumption was that the PCs would defeat the northern orcs at the Ravenrock bridge, and then get caught in a siege against superior forces at Grimstut. Looking for an out, they would use the flying boat and the covert action team (which at this point was roughly equal to an orc company by themselves, but with much better leadership) to raise Resistance forces in Mortilbaser, Buctun, and Rundbord, and cut the orc supply lines and starve them out. The orcs would counter and it would all be very exciting. Of course, the PCs didn't do that.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Establishing A Government</h3>
We started session 17 with a big role-playing scene: establishing the government. It has always been an ironclad rule of the game that it is very PC centric, and the PCs are the movers and shakers that everyone reacts to. The PCs are the de facto rulers of the Liberated Lands, whatever form of government there is, and they don't have to report to anyone. But it's also been a rule that NPCs are allowed to bitch, moan, and politic for their preferred positions, and at my prompting, the PCs finally decided to set down some rules.<br />
<br />
There was a pretty interesting discussion about the pros and cons of monarchy versus a dictatorship versus some kind of junta, but apparently democracy was entirely off the table. It was all going back and forth when suddenly everyone agreed that Trahaern should be appointed Consul and made top dog. A ruling council was established, and various people were suggested for various roles before they arrived on this structure:
<br />
<ul>
<li>Consul Trahaern, absolute ruler for the duration of the Rebellion.</li>
<li> Ruling Council of Counts and other advisors, generally the heads of Resistance organizations in each county. Attivi got promoted to Count Duzen Iken. Ariana was made High Priestess. Hloomawl, as the most approachable of the main PCs who wasn't a general, became Tribune of the Army and representative of the enlisted soldier. Greex got the title of Speaker of Kobolds to represent kobold interests.</li>
<li>Aisling and Mikael were observers on the Ruling Council, as they were both representatives of allied nations.</li>
<li>Nesta and Nayla declined any promotions and continued to serve as individuals, but as the sister of the Consul and a suspected demi-god they probably still had a lot of clout.</li>
</ul>
After a couple of hours of this, we moved on to the orc menace.<br />
<br />
<h3>
The Orcs Move Out</h3>
On June 2nd, the PCs at Elverum received word that the orcs had moved south out of Landzby. They immediately made a forced march of the entire army to the Ravenrock bridge and began setting up fortifications. The covert operation team staged an aerial siege of Ravenrock Castle the next day, and mostly dispersed the orcs in a confused fight. Unfortunately for them, while they could beat 80 orcs in a castle, they would have gotten wiped out by 2000 orcs assaulting the same castle, so they did what damage they could to the Castle and retreated back over the river. The orcs, arriving at Ravenrock Castle that evening, were confused and spent an extra day sitting around doing nothing.<br />
<br />
The Liberation Army waited on the east side of the bridge, recovering from their forced march and waiting for the orcs.<br />
<br />
<table align=" style=" auto="" center="" margin-left:="" margin-right:="" text-align:="">
</table>
<br />
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-DKj9OQJJFbA/WUvPPHWMnaI/AAAAAAAAB9Y/U_6TzQRlnlo0ftWXa8IAsgau3__nK8n5ACK4BGAYYCw/s1600/session17.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-DKj9OQJJFbA/WUvPPHWMnaI/AAAAAAAAB9Y/U_6TzQRlnlo0ftWXa8IAsgau3__nK8n5ACK4BGAYYCw/s640/session17.png" width="480" /></a><br />
Army movement for Session 17: PCs in blue, orc gathering in orange, orc army movement in red.<br />
White indicates the borders of liberated territory.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Ambush at Ravenrock Bridge</h3>
Colonel Rolg, who apparently was not very good at paying attention to current events, decided that despite the destruction of the Ravenrock garrison, his forces were undetected by the Resistance. He proceeded to have a parade across the bridge on June 5th. The Liberation Army was waiting on the other side, behind concealed fortifications.<br />
<br />
In GURPS Mass Combat, assaulting across a bridge is hard: most troops lose half their effective strength for doing so. That was enough to put the orc army at close to parity in force strength with the Liberation Army, and Trahaern was a ridiculously better general with a ridiculously better intelligence chief. The orcs were badly slaughtered in the first round but managed to rally; they made a tentative attack on the second round and took another 40% casualties. At that point, Colonel Prulo would have need a critical success to Trahaern's critical failure to eke out enough of a victory to have his shattered forces retreat without being destroyed. He did not get one and 65% of the orcs were killed in the battle and the remaining 35% dispersed.<br />
<br />
Of course, 35% of 2000 is still close to 800 troops. Most of the Orc survivors fled north, back to Landzby, but significant forces fled to Vartop and Avvinsee instead. The PCs decided to hold off on pursuit and shifted focus to their southern flank. They took the Flying Boat and did a long range scouting run on the orcs at Rundbord and discovered that army was even larger than the one they had just defeated. We ended the session with the PCs' army moving south to Elvby.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Changing Plans</h3>
The 18th session was the first one when we had Chris as a player. I made him play Himmel or Mikael, so if things didn't work out, he wouldn't disrupt the game by adding and then dropping a character. Fortunately, it worked out.<br />
<br />
The PCs had originally planned to move their army south, hold the city of Grimstut, and face down the southern orc horde there. At the start of this session, they got a wild hair and decided to do clever and tricky stuff instead. The direct action team of Aisling, Himmel, Hloomawl, Nayla, and Nesta was certainly capable of conquering an orc held castle, and they figured they could use this to their advantage. The direct action team would raise a rebellion around Avvinsee and conquer the fortress but let some orcs escape to Rundbord. Then, in the PCs' minds, the orcs would march to deal with upstarts. Meanwhile, Trahaern's army would march southwest to Avvinsee and ambush the orcs from inside the castle.<br />
<br />
What with one thing and another, this took longer to arrange than intended, and the PCs didn't make it to the area around Avvinsee until the 9th. They spent the day recruiting, and then marched their new army of 330 poorly armed peasants toward the castle on the 10th. They also spotted a group of orcs, routed at Ravenrock, getting lost in the hills around Avvinsee.<br />
<br />
Aisling took Hloomawl and the flying boat to meet up with the orcs and convince them to switch sides. It was a bit difficult, even for her, but she succeeded and the PCs got a new army of disloyal and unequipped orcs. Militarily, they're not very useful, but they've set up a lot of role-playing fodder so that's worked out.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, Himmel made a forced march to reach Avvinsee, and the overconfident orcs came out to meet him. But without Hloomawl, the PCs weren't nearly as capable as they expected, and Himmel's habit of using high risk, high casualty All-Out Attacks didn't work out very well. The human army and the orc army took roughly equal casualties and Himmel failed both his Misfortunes of War checks in the first two rounds and was knocked unconscious. The leader of the Avvinsee Resistance stepped up to replace him and started using cautious, defensive tactics, but the situation was pretty bad and night had fallen. Fortunately for the PCs, the orc leader wasn't doing well on his Misfortunes of War rolls either, and he decided to break contact with 50% casualties on his force and 2 HP remaining. The human leader let the orcs flee and recovered their casualties.<br />
<br />
Two days later, Trahaern showed up with 1200 troops and a masterful spy master. He rolled over the orcs in Avvinsee and got into a big argument with Aisling over her recruiting the orcs. There was a bunch of shouting but it was eventually resolved with the orcs not being immediately executed.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3bBohl3A37Q/WUvPkjZ9biI/AAAAAAAAB9g/00vAGcEsN20rgwBMkTQ9Qc4cS7_vyU1nACK4BGAYYCw/s1600/session18.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3bBohl3A37Q/WUvPkjZ9biI/AAAAAAAAB9g/00vAGcEsN20rgwBMkTQ9Qc4cS7_vyU1nACK4BGAYYCw/s640/session18.png" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Army movement for Session 18: PC army in blue, flying boat movement in light blue, orc army movement in red.<br />
White indicates the borders of liberated territory.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<h3>
"Man, You Can't Trust Orcs For Anything!"</h3>
The PCs then tried to salvage the remnants of their clever plans. Trahaern's army started concealing themselves in Avvinsee and Aisling decided to use her secret identity as an orc collaborator to prod the Rundbord orcs into action.<br />
<br />
At Rundbord, Aisling discovered that most of the orcs had left for Grimstut the day before. The remaining commander was about as lazy as an orc got, and although he was interested in the report that a bunch of rebels were besieging Avvinsee, he wasn't so interested as to actually do anything. Aisling eventually begged him for the loan of a wolf courier, and she took a terrifying overnight ride to meet up with the orcs.<br />
<br />
On the way to Grimstut, Aisling encounter Colonel Prulo's forces of 3300 orcs. She told him of the siege of Avvinsee, but she couldn't convince him to turn his army around. Instead, he sent Colonels Rigar and Krag and their regiments (~1300 troops) back to clear the rebels out while his main force continued to Grimstut. Frustrated, Aisling slunk off . Then she realized that while she could magically broadcast her location to the Resistance and have them send the Flying Boat to pick her up, she couldn't encode the message or prevent the orc wizards from overhearing. She ended up spending the next day or two hiking to get away from the orcs and safely arrange a pickup.<br />
<br />
<h3>
The Brief Second Siege of Avvinsee</h3>
Colonels Rigar and Krag raced their forces up to Avvinsee, where they saw human rebels besieging the orc fortress. They immediately charged to the relief, at which point the hidden Resistance forces popped up from behind the walls and began letting loose on the orcs. Trahaern and Greex firmly had the battle in hand and the orcs failed to recover from the ambush on the first turn. Some 800 Orc troops survived to flee back to Rundbord, broken and abandoning their equipment. Trahaern elected not to pursue.<br />
<br />
That was the end of the 18th session.<br />
<br />
<h3>
A Matter of Justice</h3>
We started the 19th session with a big role-playing scene. Another new player, Raven, had joined us and was playing Mikael while Chris was switching over to his permanent character of Sven.<br />
<br />
A pair of kobolds timidly approached Mikael on the night of the 14th, after the Second Siege was over. They were new recruits to the logistics force after the Battle of Ravenrock Bridge, and had marched south with the orcs from Bergen. They had also recognized a pair of orcs from Aisling's new army as the orcs that had robbed and murdered their half-sister, and they wanted justice.<br />
<br />
Mikael took the issue to Trahaern, Greex, and Hloomawl, and they collected Aisling and went to confront Sergeant Gharza. Sergeant Gharza was a new NPC, the highest ranking survivor of Ravenrock Bridge in this particular batch of orcs. Aisling wanted to make an example of how justice was going to be handled in her new army.<br />
<br />
The kobolds identified Parz, Gharza's assistant, as the orc that had robbed their half-sister and Erigor, another orc, as the one who had actually done the murder. Aisling demanded Parz' punishment and Erigor's execution. Gharza attempted to defend the orcs in a fairly incompetent manner, at first disbelieving that anyone would care about kobolds and moving on to calling the kobolds liars and claiming there was no proof that anything had happened or that the kobolds had any claim to justice. Hloomawl and Trahaern got progressively angrier and eventually Gharza shut up. Aisling paid the kobolds out of her own pocket and Parz and Erigor got punished.<br />
<br />
<h3>
"How Was I Supposed to Know!"</h3>
The PCs were settling down to watch Erigor's execution when a herd of pegasii (Kevin swears this is the correct Greek plural of Pegasus) flew up to the castle and started circling around. Alarms were sounded, weapons were readied, and Greex had to defend himself against charges of being a bad spymaster. In his defense, the pegasii could fly 100+ miles a day, and it wasn't really reasonable to expect him to know about forces moving around behind orc lines.<br />
<br />
In short, Sven was introduced: a brash rebel from the northern plains. He had rescued a bunch of pegasii from an Orc breeding farm, and was riding the biggest and most impressive of the studs. Magnus, the pegasus champion, was also introduced at this time, and I'm afraid I rather stole the show from Chris. As I played him, Magnus was vain, slightly dimwitted, indiscreet, and inadvertently hilarious. He insulted all the other PCs as a bunch of "piebald ragmuffins," though he acknowledged the red-haired nymph Aisling as "the good looking roan," called Sven a "sack of onions in the saddle" (rather unfairly, as Sven is an excellent rider), and was generally disdainful. He was gracious when he was invited to the Council of War, though.<br />
<br />
Anyway, introductions were made and the PCs decided to use their new air support to keep track of the orcs. Trahaern reversed his army, heading back to Elvby with plans to move south to Grimstut. Himmel held Avvinsee with the militia against any orc movement to the north, and the direct action team loaded up the Flying Boat with plans to fly southeast and cut the orc supply lines by conquering Buctun, Mortilbaser, and the citadel of Soroverstine.<br />
<br />
<h3>
The Champion Meets the Smith</h3>
The morning of the 15th, the direct action team was armoring up and getting ready. Magnus ogled Hloomawl's expertly crafted armor, apologized to the prince of minotaurs for snubbing him the night before, and asked where he got it. On learning that Ariana had made it, Magnus dispatched Sven to acquire some for him, because it was beneath Magnus' dignity to talk to the "help". Sven protested the non-egalitarian attitude but decided to avoid a horsey snit-fit by talking to Ariana. She, in turn, was encouraged by her kobold assistants to turn out something in a hurry. Magnus was impressed by his new very fine chest barding, but whined that it would look better on him in black to properly set up the color contrast against his shining white hair. Ariana spontaneously learned how to cosmetically control metal and walked over and tapped the barding with her hammer, turning it black. Magnus was pleased and all the players were rolling on the floor with laughter.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Freedom for Cape Sood</h3>
The PCs put their plan to free southwest Hanist into motion by flying to Buctun and meeting up with an 80 strong army of Resistance fighters who had trained in the wood and were armed and armored with smuggled weapons. They spent a day marching their army to Buctun and then assaulted the fortress. Sven showed his chops as a command, forcing the orcs to retreat north (where, as it turned out, they got ambushed by the next bunch of Resistance fighters).<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-kd0C_qalYEc/WUvWnShPqkI/AAAAAAAAB9w/TJMKEn7N1iUcD-fGXgCw_l2H3It8mi2owCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/session19.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-kd0C_qalYEc/WUvWnShPqkI/AAAAAAAAB9w/TJMKEn7N1iUcD-fGXgCw_l2H3It8mi2owCK4BGAYYCw/s640/session19.png" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Army movement for Session 19: PC army in blue, flying boat movement in light blue, orc army movement in red.<br />
Green indicates the arrival of Sven's forces and light green for the pegasii movements.<br />
White indicates the borders of liberated territory.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
The next day, the PCs made an effort to get started early. They assaulted Mortilbaser by themselves, dispersed the orcs, and hurried on to Soroverstine. They weren't as interested in taking control of this territory as they were in breaking the orc control; they were going to leave it to the local Resistance to secure the citadels. There was no chance that would come back to haunt them. At any rate, Sven was an amazing strategist and the orc commanders at the two fortresses were subpar; the direct action team easily defeated them.<br />
<br />
<h3>
The Failure of Cavalry</h3>
Colonel Prulo had conquered Grimstut and was moving toward Kristensund, sweeping the meager Liberation militia forces out of his way, when he learned about Colonel Rigar's and Krag's defeat at Avvinsee. Prulo immediately went back to Grimstut and began fortifying the castle there. He also began taxing everything in sight and started using the money to maintain his troops and start enslaving the militia survivors as living shields in his own army. Finally, he dispatched his last subordinate, Colonel Kilar, with all of their cavalry to take the unfortified city of Kristensund. Krilar also had orders to fall back if the Liberation army approached from the north, unless he could hold them at the Kristinsund-Elverum bridge.<br />
<br />
When Trahaern's army showed up northwest of Kristinsud, with Sven's new light cavalry leading the scouting forces, I checked Krilar's abilities. He was another overconfident, offense minded, megalomaniac, and he failed his common sense roll to not tangle with Sven's cavalry. As Sven's cavalry was backed by Sven's skilled heavy cavalry, his Pegasii flying heavy cavalry, and eventually the entirety of Trahaern's infantry army, Krilar soon found outmatched, outnumbered, and surrounded. Krilar attempted a general retreat which turned into a rout, and of the 500 cavalry attacked Sven's forces, less than 200 survived to return to Grimstut. Krilar made it back but was immediately executed.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Balancing Act</h3>
The PCs noticed that there were 800 broken orcs at Rundbord, and after the direct action team finished conquering Groanridder castle to the west, they decided to do something about that. Aisling, Himmel, the Avvinsee militia, and the direct action team met up at Rundbord and started negotiating. The terms were generous: surrender and serve the Liberation with pay, or resist and be destroyed at Rundbord. After some hemming and hawing, Colonel Rigar surrendered. About half the orcs decided to join the army, and the rest are prisoners of war that the PCs don't know what to do with yet.<br />
<br />
By this point, it was 9:10 my time. It was too late to run the battle with Prulo at Grimstut, but I didn't quite want to end the session. I quickly checked with the existing players if they liked Raven. The response was positive and I made sure that Raven wanted to continuing playing. That response was also positive. Raven had spent the week coming up with a new character, Zarathras the young dragon, so I decided to introduce him immediately.<br />
<br />
Colonel Rigar took the PCs into his basement dungeon and showed them his most awesome prisoner: a baby dragon, muzzled and enchained. Hloomawl immediately freed Zarathras and there was a short introduction. That filled the remainder of the time, and we ended the 19th session there.<br />
<br />
<h3>
"Are you Monster, or a Man Eating Monster?"</h3>
The session started with more reaction to Zarathras. He was willing to join the Resistance, but the others PCs were wary of him. When Zarathras said that he wanted to kill and eat the orcs that had abused him, that didn't help matters. After a fair bit of discussion, Zarathras agreed that getting identified as a "man eating monster" would not do much for his desire to improve human-dragon relations. He then wanted to personally murder those orcs, but was talked down to just having them executed.<br />
<br />
<h3>
A Question of Conscience</h3>
On the morning of June 21, Zarathras and rest of the direct action team flew to meet up with the army that was marching on Grimstut. I had already told them via email between games that the Orcs were enslaving humans, arming them, and mixing them among their own troops. An all-out assault on the fortress would get those humans killed in large numbers, and since many of them were members of the Grimstut militia that had been overwhelmed by the massive Orc army, the PCs were reluctant to kill them.<br />
<br />
True to form, my players had briefly debated what to do, failed to come to any decisions, and pretty much dropped the issue. So when it came up again in play, they still didn't have any plans. I said they could not use their archers against the Orcs, and that would reduce casualties, but it would also give the orcs a significant advantage in a siege that was only narrowly going for the PCs to start. The PCs didn't like that, and had a desultory conversation about what they could do. Short on ideas, they eventually decided to try to parley and get the orcs to surrender, or at least leave Hanist.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-PxdYMXG3PYQ/WU25kkLcKNI/AAAAAAAAB-A/V4cELpfk7CsE9z6s9CK12KKEWNXV8U-4ACK4BGAYYCw/s1600/Sessions20.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-PxdYMXG3PYQ/WU25kkLcKNI/AAAAAAAAB-A/V4cELpfk7CsE9z6s9CK12KKEWNXV8U-4ACK4BGAYYCw/s640/Sessions20.png" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Army movement for Session 20: PC army in blue, flying boat movement in light blue, orc army movement in red.<br />
White indicates the borders of liberated territory.
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<h3>
"Come, humans! Show me your strength again!"</h3>
Ben had asked to lurk on the game and offered to play some NPC parts if I thought that would help. I decided to let him play Colonel Prulo in the upcoming negotiations and gave him a quick sketch of the orc leader: convinced he was destined to win, certain of the strength of his defenses, and scared of Murzush, the fanatic orc commander of the garrison at <a href="http://noschoolgrognard.blogspot.com/2017/05/new-dawn-session-14-16-secrets-of.html" target="_blank">Stinecrice</a> who wanted revenge on the PCs. Ben happily stepped up to the task.<br />
<br />
The negotiations didn't go well. The PCs didn't have much to offer Prulo except surrender on terms and exile from his country; Prulo wasn't interested. Aisling had been left been with the orcs at Rundbord, so the PCs didn't have a dedicated negotiator and their Intimidation skills weren't really all that high. Eventually the PCs turned away, but Nayla decided to break the parley and try to assassinate Prulo with a Guided arrow the eye.<br />
<br />
Unfortunately, Prulo was expecting an attack and had two bodyguards; three shields snapped up and intercepted the arrow. Prulo immediately commanded all the orc crossbowmen on the walls to counterfire, and though the PCs ran for a couple of seconds, they were still well within range when 10 orcs fired at each of them. Ariana and Hloomawl managed to get their shields up, and Hloomawl even managed to block for Nayla, but Trahaern took a couple of bolts that penetrated armor and Zarathras, who had joined the negotiations in his human form (and without armor!) got perforated with three and almost forced into a death check. Hloomawl picked him up and the PCs fled as the orcs reloaded, and they managed to make it to a rough trenchline before the orcs reloaded, aimed, and fired.<br />
<br />
Ben had Prulo taunt the PCs as they fled, which was a nice touch that I wouldn't have thought of and didn't have time to do anyway. Having Ben play Prulo really improved that entire scenario, as he was much more clever with his insults and bragging that I was, and it meant that I could spend more time with Murzush and his crazy rants. All that, and I didn't have to talk to myself when the NPCs argued!<br />
<br />
<h3>
Slow Learner</h3>
Trahaern decided to assault the castle at dawn the next day. Ariana took the time to summon a bunch of fellow worshipers of the Forge-God Volundr and have a big, long prayer to save the enslaved humans. With time and help, Ariana easily made the petition roll, and with the lives of many people depending on a miracle, she even managed to get a Good result on the reaction roll. Volundr assured her that the least of his works would not harm those pledged to his care, and (after recovering from her shock at unambiguously getting an answer, however cryptic it might have been) she went and told Trahaern that he could safely deploy his archers.<br />
<br />
Zarathras had pretty good night vision, so he decided to overflow the castle and do some scouting at night. Of course, orcs and goblins have infravision, and could easily see the fiery hot dragon. I asked Raven how high Zarathras was flying, and he said 150 yards - beyond of half-damage range of most orc crossbows when fired at a high angle, but not beyond all of them. I had told him that were 300-400 orc crossbowmen, but he was confident in his armor and his speed.<br />
<br />
Orc crossbowmen are pretty skilled, with accurate bows. 120 of them fired at an effective 300 yards after aiming for the maximum amount of time, and it worked out that about a third of them hit. Only 10 of them were in full damage range, and could potentially damage the dragon - but all of them were using bodkin heads. Half of the bolts penetrated his armor, nearly knocking him unconscious. Zarathras climbed 50 yards while they reloaded, and weathered the next volley easily, but he decided that scouting was for the birds and limped back to the Resistance lines.<br />
<br />
<h3>
A Short Sharp Shock</h3>
Murzush was one of the first player created NPCs in the game: Kevin had mentioned him as a particularly viscious orc with a magic weapon in an wiki article on <a href="http://newdawn.wikia.com/wiki/ND/Famous_Enchanted_Items" target="_blank">example magic weapons</a> for <a href="http://noschoolgrognard.blogspot.com/2017/01/enchantment-through-deeds.html" target="_blank">Enchantment Through Deeds</a>, and I'd been meaning and forgetting to use him since then. He was originally the commander of the garrison at <a href="http://noschoolgrognard.blogspot.com/2017/03/new-dawn-session-8-going-gets-tough.html" target="_blank">Duzen Iken</a>, but I forget to use him and moved him to Stinecrice, where I forgot about him again. Then he was going to feature in the orcs in Session 17, but got busy and forgot again. So I decided to have a couple of rounds of personal scale combat at the start of the battle so Murzush could menace people properly. This maybe wasn't the best idea I've ever had, as it was already getting late and personal combat can be slow, but I figured I'd give it a try.<br />
<br />
The scenario was that the PCs were leading the charge when the gates were breached, which was pretty reasonable given their Risk Modifiers and general tendencies. The orc commanders were on the other side, and a short range melee broke out (though orc sharpshooters on the walls were firing down intermittently on the PCs).<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GEL1N4kHeBE/WU3DDPSReYI/AAAAAAAAB-Y/_yOjJveWeEYRyTovmJl1rFekmyP5JqeawCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/Session20b.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GEL1N4kHeBE/WU3DDPSReYI/AAAAAAAAB-Y/_yOjJveWeEYRyTovmJl1rFekmyP5JqeawCK4BGAYYCw/s400/Session20b.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Murzush and his goons wrap around Ariana, while Sven and Hloomawl defeat Prulo.<br />
Trahaern used his magic staff to jump over and behind the orc line and <br />
Nayla stands well behind the PC line to provide fire support.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
The combat was short, but not particularly quick. Blows were exchanged, people defended, and then Chris rolled double critical hits for his attacks on Colonel Prulo. Prulo burnt Destiny points to cancel one of the criticals, but the second caused a hit that rolled maximum damage on the dice (normal damage on the critical hit, go figure) and Sven managed to stab through Prulo's armor with a mighty blow. Sven's sword was also enchanted to explode for 1d cr ex as a follow-up, and Chris rolled maximum damage on that, too, x3 for an internal explosion. Prulo went from unwounded to nearly dead in a single blow, and fell unconscious immediately.<br />
<br />
That was basically round two of the fight. I really wanted to resolve the Mass Combat and it was already 9:15 my time, so I ended the combat at the end of that round and moved back to the Mass Combat.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Trahaern the Ever Victorious</h3>
Trahaern launched an All-Out Assault on the castle walls into Prulo's defense. Prulo rolled well, and Trahaern didn't, but Prulo was Strategy-15 to Trahaern's Strategy-24 and Trahaern had a larger and better army. In the end, Trahaern edged out a victory at a high cost in casualties in the first round.<br />
In the second round, Trahaern went for a Indirect Attack (ie, a feigned retreat to draw some of the orcs out) while Prulo defended again. This time, Trahaern won by 10, doubled to 20 for successful Indirect Attempt, and massacred the orcs to a total of 60% casualties at no losses. We didn't play out the last rounds, but Trahaern was at +11 over his starting point at this point and even the mixed result he got on the first round would have been an overwhelming massacre of the orcs with that much extra bonus. Trahaern put the surviving orcs to the sword, most of the human militia survived, and we ended the game.<br />
<br />
After liberating Grimstut (again), I declared that Hanist was effectively liberated. There were still over a thousand orcs still in the country, but if they weren't capable of defeating a smaller PC army in with 2400 orcs, 12 fights against 100 orcs wouldn't be a problem against a much larger PC army (new recruits had been completing training and joining the army all through June). That was worth a lot of CP for each PC, so they'll hopefully even be more capable for the next set of challenges.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Review of Play</h3>
So this was a long four sessions, but each session was generally really good. There was a lot of role-playing and a fair bit of mass combat, and if the individual combat and dungeon delving was a little neglected, I consoled myself with the thought that Stinecrice had been three sessions in a row of that. My balance of gaming experiences on a per session basis is kind of wonky, but over the course of the campaign it's been pretty good.<br />
<br />
The 17th session went pretty much how I expected, and the 18th session went off-script. Which is fine, because gaming is a collaborative experience and there's no reason to put the game on rails. The PCs did stuff that I didn't expect, and I rolled with it. It had the effect of splitting up Colonel Prulo's overwhelming force into three bite-sized chunks, which is what I expected in the end. They just took a different route.<br />
<br />
The 19th session didn't advance the plot very much, but it was super enjoyable, and that's what's really important in a social and entertainment activity. I had pretty much written up Magnus on my own because Chris wasn't working fast enough for me, and I really got into the role of the slightly dim but very vain pegasus. Chris is an engaged and engaging role-player in his own right, and I felt bad for overshadowing him with his own horse, but he was a very good sport about it. <br />
<br />
The 20th session was just a bit too much for four hours. I don't think it had to be that way: if the PCs had came in with a plan to deal with the humans enslaved at Grimstut, we could have done everything I tried to do in the session. Instead, there was a bit of dead time as they brainstormed. I was disappointed, but I can only provide opportunities for a great game: the players have to meet me part of the way. Sometimes they exceed that requirement and drive the game with little input from me, and sometimes they do a bit less and parts of the session are flabby. It's gaming. It will still a good session, just a little too packed and badly paced.<br />
<br />
The 20th session was a good example of the emergent nature of the narrative in the game. In my planning for these sessions, I knew that Prulo was a defensive general, but I didn't know he was going to enslave the humans and cause problems by doing that. But after Aisling tricked him into sending half his army into defeat, he knew he wanted to fort up in a castle. And then he realized that he would need reinforcements, and since there was no reasonable source of Orc reinforcements at hand, he started enslaving humans. That, in turn, made the final battle for the Liberation of Hanist into a proper and challenging climax, as opposed to Trahaern just walking up with his army and knocking the place over. I was really pleased with how that worked out.<br />
<br />
In four sessions, the group added two new players and a very active observer. Adding new players is always a challenge: even if they're the nicest people in the world, there's differences in expectations and social contract from their previous experiences. It worked out in the end, but there were a couple of rough patches.<br />
<br />
<h4>
"Is the character creation system ... as rigid as it seems?"</h4>
Both new players thought the character creation rules were restrictive. It was a difficult question to answer: on the one hand, PCs have to conform to a template, and there's only 6 major roles and maybe 7-8 minor roles that are any good, so there's only space for ~50 unique character combinations. And some people feel that working with any template on a freeform system like GURPS is too restrictive. On the other, I've edited the game world to support PC requests (Minotaurs were originally on the side of the Empire, while Tzavarim and the Fae weren't even on the map until the players requested them) and I'm pretty flexible about players going off template to achieve things that I hadn't thought of. So it was a combination of yes and no.<br />
<br />
It worked out in the end. Chris got a rabble-rousing cavalryman on a flying steed (he dithered on riding bears for a while, which would have been differently awesome) and Raven got his dragon spellcaster. I am firmly of the opinion that if you're playing a generic fantasy game and the GM allows you to play a dragon, character creation isn't too rigid.<br />
<br />
<h4>
"Isn't Himmel supposed to be a good general?"</h4>
The other problem we had was that I started the new players on some old PCs. I did this because I wasn't sure the group would like them or that they would like the group. I think the group is fabulous but I get that we're not to everyone's tastes. I wanted new players to have a chance to test the waters and back out without changing the game world, so Chris played Himmel and Raven played Mikael.<br />
<br />
The problem with Himmel is that while he has a big, easily defined personality of "lecherous braggart daredevil warleader," his character sheet was very unoptimized. Chris threw himself into the role with gusto, and everyone appreciated his role-playing, but his abilities as a general were subpar and he lost what should have been an easy fight. I apologized to Chris and optimized the character after the game, but the damage was done. At least I learned from my mistake, and I made sure Mikael was optimized.<br />
<br />
Of course, Mikael had the opposite problem: even optimized, his personality was pretty undefined. "Secretive", "Snarky in combat", and "Soldier's Code of Honor" are not enough to role-play a new character. I'd asked Raven to go ahead and edit the character, but he didn't. So while Raven is a good role-player, he didn't have much to work with and his version of Mikael didn't contribute much to the game. That was one of the reasons I wanted to throw Zarathras in as soon as I could: I figured with a better character, Raven would make a better impression and enjoy the game more. That worked out okay.<br />
<br />
<h4>
Observer? Adversary?</h4>
Ben had seen the posting for new players and responded after we were full, but I mentioned we allowed observers and invited him to lurk. He responded by offering to play any minor or major NPCs. I've never had an Adversary player before, and I was dubious at first, but decided to give it a try. Which worked out really well, as Ben threw himself into his roles and really brought a lot to the game. I really appreciated having a second person who could speak as an NPC, because it meant two NPCs could have a conversation without it just being the GM talking to himself. I know I've mentioned that already, but it was really incredible from my side of the screen.<br />
<br />
I've invited Ben to continue as an Adversary player, and possibly a co-GM if he wants it. I'm too used to having the final say in rule decisions to be really comfortable with a co-GM, but I am also very committed to letting the players have editorial control of the world and it would be unnatural to not let the Adversary in on the fun. Ben is mulling the offer, but at a minimum, he's going to continue playing minor NPCs. Which will require a little more work on my part, but the payout will justify the effort.<br />
<br />
<h3>
What's Next?</h3>
Next session is going to be some role-playing and some Mass Combat to chase the last of the orcs out of Hanist. I'm looking for a good next delve: one of the problems with the game, as I've set it up, is that most delve sites should have been looted by the enemy decades ago. I think I have a partial solution for that, but it's definitely a hole in the campaign set-up that I didn't realize until I got farther in.<br />
<br />Mark Langsdorfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00301984145275679568noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1287550692312955328.post-2727369104175900292017-06-17T04:54:00.001-07:002017-06-17T04:55:53.407-07:00GURPS Mass Combat: Positional Warfare<b>Precis</b>: Reducing casualties in GURPS Mass Combat should increase the value of Position Bonus, making for more interesting choices but slowing down battle resolution.<br />
<br />
I've been running my GURPS Fantasy <a href="http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/books/masscombat/" target="_blank">Mass Combat</a> game for about six months, and although I generally like GURPS Mass Combat as a quick and simple way to resolve large scale battles and get on to the role-playing, there are some issues.<br />
<br />
One that is particularly bothering me is Position Bonus and casualties. Position Bonus (PB) is an abstract value that a force using attack strategies can earn by winning a round of battle. PB improves Strategy rolls on subsequent rounds of battle. Casualties are losses to a force, inflicted in varying amounts to both the winner and loser of a battle round in varying amounts depending on the scope of the victory. Casualties penalize Strategy rolls on subsequent rounds of battle.<br />
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<br />
The way that the Mass Combat rules read, commanders are supposed to be paying attention to PB, attempting strategies to reduce the enemy PB and striking harder when they have the advantage. In practice, PB increases by 2-3 for a significant victory and by 4 for a decisive victory, while the relative shifts for casualties increase by 2-4 for a significant victory and 8 or more for a decisive victory. In practice, the bonus an attacking force gains from PB is rarely as much as, and often much less than, the bonus the victorious force gets from causing casualties.<br />
<br />
It's a bit of a shame that PB doesn't play a larger roll in Mass Combat rules. The following is a house rule that attempts to make casualties less important and PB more important. As a side effect, it should reduce overall casualties for Mass Combat forces to closer to historical norms. More battles should end with a Fighting Withdrawal or Full Retreat after the enemy achieves a sustained (+6 or more) PB bonus, instead of ending when the losing side is wiped out.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Positional Warfare</h3>
Resolve the battle as normal on pages 32-38 of Mass Combat. The only change is calculating casualties (p 37). Take the casualty numbers from the Combat Results Table (p 36) and divide them by 5 if the inflicting force used an attack strategy or by 3 otherwise. Round down to the nearest whole number.<br />
<br />
Casualties continue to cause a -1 to Basic Strategy Modifier for every full 5% casualties suffered.<br />
<br />
Special casualty increases or decreases from battle strategy (winning all-out attack or deliberate defense, fighting a mobile defense or skirmish) are not changed. Nor is the bonus casualties inflicted or save by pursuing a retreating enemy or holding the field.<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Example</i>: Using the same base skills and die rolls as the Battle of Drake's Cross from the book, the situation changes. On the first round, Sir Richard's defensive victory inflicts 5% casualties on Strykland's force, while Strykland failed attack only inflicts 2% casualties on Sir Richard.<br />
For the second round, Strykland is still suffering a net -1 skill due to casualties, and will again tie Sir Richard. As both sides are attacking and tied, casualties are minimal, with only 2% inflicted on each side, bringing the total to 7% for Strykland and 4% for Sir Richard.<br />
On the third round, Sir Richard's attack is a win by 10-14. Strykland's loosing defense inflicts another 2% casualties, while Sir Richard's overwhelming attack only inflicts 10% casualties but nets him another +3 in PB.<br />
At the start of the fourth round, Sir Richard is at -1 for casualties and +3 for PB, giving him an effective strategy skill of 15. Strykland is at -3 for casualties and +0 for PB, reducing his effective strategy from 12 to 9. (Though not stated in MC, the numbers for the start of the fourth round would have by -5 casualties, +3 PB for Sir Richard; and -11 casualties for Strykland, or 11 versus a 1). Sir Richard would get another +2 for an all-out attack, while Strykland would have been at a net 0 for a failed Parley (converted into a Defense at -1; Defense normally gives +1 to strategy). An average result on both die rolls would result in a margin 8 victory for Sir Richard. He would gain another +2 PB and inflict another 10% casualties on Strykland's force; Strykland's defense would only inflict 3% casualties (5% on the table, doubled for taking any casualties in all-out attack, and divided by 3 for Strykland's defense strategy).<br />
In the book example, at this point, Strykland's force is supposed to have been wiped out but have actually only taken 80% casualties. Under Positional Warfare, Sir Richard has +5 PB and 9% casualties. Strykland has no PB and has taken 27% casualties. With his position untenable, Strykland attempts a Full Retreat while Sir Richard continues to ride him down with another All-Out Attack. Effective skills are 15 for Strykland and 19 for Sir Richard. Another average set of rolls see Strykland retreating with 0 additional casualties and no more losses for Sir Richard. The good knight now has to decide whether to hold the field (halving his casualties and reducing them by 5% will net him 0 overall for the battle) or pursue Strykland and inflict another 5% casualties for a total of 32% casualties but taking 5% casualties for his own force.</blockquote>
<br />
<h4>
Evaluation</h4>
Positional Warfare changes Mass Combat a lot. Battles go on for longer and are more inconclusive: instead of being wiped out in the fourth round, Strykland successfully retreats with more than two-thirds of his force intact. Attacks are also riskier: a minimal win results in few casualties and little PB gain, while a successful defense by the opponent results in higher casualties for the attacking side for no gain. Both sides have incentive to take Defense strategies, which convert to Skirmish if they both do, making battles even more inconclusive.<br />
<br />
Strategically, the fact that most battles are resolved with the losing force retreating in good order, instead of being routed with 50% of the force permanently dead and the rest dispersed, means that the operational/campaign level struggle is also more inconclusive. Losing forces are not destroyed, but instead can retreat and regroup.<br />
<br />
Overall, I think Positional Warfare improves Mass Combat, but it does slow at the cost of slowing down play and making battles less decisive. Standard Mass Combat has an advantage that if one force is clearly superior to the other, it can expect to destroy the enemy completely in 3 rounds of combat. Doing so takes a tolerable amount of time in play. Shifting that so that a superior force chases off an inferior force in 6 rounds, only to have to track them down and repeat the process two or three times until they're fully destroyed, might be intolerable in play.<br />
<br />
I'd like to experiment more with Positional Warfare, but it's such a style change for my <a href="http://noschoolgrognard.blogspot.com/search/label/New%20Dawn" target="_blank">current game</a> that I think the players would hate it. Everyone has gotten used to destroying the enemy in 2-3 rounds and resolving the struggle; switching rules to make combat less decisive would not be popular.Mark Langsdorfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00301984145275679568noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1287550692312955328.post-41272963870205256292017-06-12T05:17:00.000-07:002017-06-17T04:55:53.414-07:00GURPS Mass Combat: Fragile Feature<b>Precis</b>: In GURPS Mass Combat, Fragile troops are helpful as long as you're winning - but they cause problems when you start to lose.<br />
<br />
This is a new unit feature for troops in <a href="http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/books/masscombat/" target="_blank">GURPS Mass Combat</a>. It's come up in my <a href="http://noschoolgrognard.blogspot.com/search/label/New%20Dawn" target="_blank">New Dawn</a> game and I thought I would share it.<br />
<br />
<h3>
<i>Fragile </i> GM-Assigned</h3>
The element is composed of troops who perform poorly under heavy stress. As long as they are part of a winning army, whether on the offense or defense, they act as their training and experience dictate. Should they find themselves losing, they behave much worse than their training and experience would suggest, refusing to move from safe positions on the offense and refusing to fall back from compromised positions on the defense.<br />
<br />
If a force contains at least 20% fragile elements (by percentage of total elements or total TS), then the force commander has an additional -2 penalty to Battle Strategy rolls when choosing the Rally strategy or when rolling after losing the previous round of battle. The penalty is not cumulative.<br />
This feature is characteristic of fatalistic warriors, braggarts, some monsters, and troops that have been reformed after being defeated. It is compatible with Impetuous, and many Impetuous elements should also have Fragile. <br />
<br />
Fragile came up in play after the PCs started defeating large formations of orcs: even with 100% or more nominal battlefield losses, 30-50% of the enemy force would flee without their equipment (Mass Combat p38). That wasn't a big deal when the PCs were fighting 100-200 orcs at a time, but defeating 1600 orcs meant there were still upwards of 600 dispersed fighters. It seemed reasonable that people would want to gather those survivors up, refit and re-equip them, but it also seemed reasonable that those broken survivors would permanently be less capable. The Fragile trait is a way to mark such units of formerly defeated soldiers, but it's also useful for modeling the tendency of some historical armies to do well as long as they're winning and then fall apart very quickly at the first setback.Mark Langsdorfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00301984145275679568noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1287550692312955328.post-17202007228038179962017-05-26T10:59:00.001-07:002017-05-26T10:59:47.242-07:00New Dawn Session 14 - 16: The Secrets of Stinecrice<b>Precis</b>: The Resistance visits a mysterious stone circle. There they fight their way through several strangle battles and muddle their way through confusing puzzles. In the end, mysteries are revealed.<br />
<br />
I've been running New Dawn on a more or less weekly basis for the past several months, and not writing up the sessions because I'm been lazy. However, the last month has been really good, interesting, and weird, and several subtle clues that have been in the game since the beginning finally paid off and I'm excited about that. I'm also ambivalent about some things.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Cast of Characters</h3>
<a href="http://noschoolgrognard.blogspot.com/search/label/New%20Dawn" target="_blank">New Dawn</a>
is a troupe style game, with each player having two characters. One
team primarily does military stuff; the other team has been doing
delving and diplomacy.<br />
<ul>
<li><a class="g-profile" href="https://plus.google.com/115373610030621027923" target="_blank">+Uhuk of the Guard</a>'s <a href="http://newdawn.wikia.com/wiki/ND/Hloomawl" target="_blank">Hloomawl</a>, a minotaur princeling and mighty warrior.</li>
<li><a class="g-profile" href="https://plus.google.com/116541461100903445865" target="_blank">+Eric Schmidt</a>'s <a href="http://newdawn.wikia.com/wiki/ND/Nesta_Bowen" target="_blank">Nesta</a> Bowen, a human master spy with a grudge against the orcs.</li>
<li>Eilmyn Davidon's <a href="http://newdawn.wikia.com/wiki/ND/Michael_Jones" target="_blank">Mikael</a> Orna, a Tzavarim archer.</li>
<li><a class="g-profile" href="https://plus.google.com/115413841072686813753" target="_blank">+Kevin Smyth</a>'s <a href="http://newdawn.wikia.com/wiki/ND/Ariana_Rees" target="_blank">Ariana</a> Rees, a human blacksmith and minor saint.</li>
<li>Kiara Schmidt's <a href="http://newdawn.wikia.com/wiki/ND/Nayla" target="_blank">Nayla</a>, a supernaturally skilled archer.</li>
</ul>
Eilmyn had to leave the game after the fifteen session. Her former characters got renamed and will become NPCs or temporary characters for players who want to try the game out for a session or two.<br />
<br />
<h3>
The Secrets of Stinecrice</h3>
The sessions started a little after the previous session. With all the local orcs defeated and the Flying Boat repaired, it was time to deal with some prophetic visions that Ariana had been experiencing: she felt the need to go to Stinecrice, a mysterious stone circle (like Stonehenge) nearly 100 miles deep into orc controlled territory. She'd also been having visions of extreme danger, death by a dozen different elemental hazards, so everyone stocked up on elemental resistance potions. Then they piled into the Flying Boat and headed upriver.<br />
<br />
The magic of the boat only works for four hours a day. To maximize visibility and simplify navigation, they flew about the boat's maximum altitude of 100 yards, but that also made it easy for orc garrisons to spot them and they saw goblin wolfrider couriers being dispatched from hostile strongholds as they passed. As long as the boat was working, it was trivial for the PCs to outrun the couriers and the patrols they spawned, but they realized that those patrols might become a problem when they stopped for the night. In the end, they had just enough range to reach Stinecrice before the boat stopped flying, and that's what they did. I just laughed silently and wondered what they were going to do to leave the area.<br />
<br />
Stinecrice itself was protected by some <a href="http://noschoolgrognard.blogspot.com/2017/01/new-dawn-session-3-wight-men-cant-jump.html" target="_blank">lightning throwers</a> and a company of elite orcs: these orcs were both skilled in battle and not insane. Around ten orcs were in the immediate vicinity, with another ten close at hand as reinforcements, and both groups attacked the PCs as soon as they emerged from the nearby swamp.<br />
<br />
The resulting battle was marked by some pretty poor tactics by the PCs but eventual victory anyway. Nayla and Mikael each attacked a different orc knight that was galloping toward them, but the combination of range and solid defenses meant they mostly shot up the knights' shields. Nayla did spend a couple of seconds laying waste to any orc priest or crossbowman that she saw, and those guys and the orc infantry were pretty ineffectual. The knights finally closed to lance range, but Ariana and Hloomawl defended against their lances and then the archers finished them off. The remaining orc infantry were quickly defeated.<br />
<br />
At the magical stone circle itself, the team carefully worked their way past the defenses. When they got close, they were sucked into the weird glowing colors in the center of the circle and things got weird.<br />
<h3>
<br />The Test of Faith</h3>
The PCs found themselves in a 30' wide, 30' corridor, made from an unknown smooth gray stone and uniformly lit by unknown light sources. Ahead of them, they saw a 30' wide pit with a 30' wide chimney above it and some glowing letters.<br />
<br />
When they got closer, they could read the letters which said "The Divine are real yet ineffable. To accept the Divine wisdom requires a leap of faith." While they were puzzling that out, I privately told Kiara that Nayla could see a solid stone bridge across the pit, which she immediately walked across. Ariana and Nesta tried to follow her, but they could neither see or nor touch the bridge, and backed off. After some discussion, Ariana volunteered to jump across the pit and everyone else waited to see what would happen. Unfortunately for that plan, I told them that the nature of the place required each of them to choose before any of them saw the results. Mikael and Nesta, unsure of their ability to make the leap, each took a narrow ledge that allowed a safe crossing of the pit, while Hloomawl elected to jump. Ariana and Hloomawl easily crossed the pit and then everyone saw a flash of white.<br />
<h3>
<br />The Trial of Metal and Wood</h3>
When I actually ran the game, I missed a step in my notes. I did run this next little bit later, and it works okay where I ran it, but I'd rather record it how it was supposed to happen.<br />
<br />
The PCs found themselves in a 30' wide, 30' corridor, made from an
unknown smooth gray stone and uniformly lit by unknown light sources.
Ahead of them, they saw a 30' wide pit with a 30' wide chimney above it.<br />
<br />
When they got closer, they saw five figures walk up the far wall of the pit - a big minotaur, a tall tzavarim, a large armored human, and two humans in mail. The figures were standing on the wall as though it was the floor. Then one of the humans walked vertically up the air, crossing the hall on the other side of the pit. The armored human and the minotaur then jumped up the wall while the other two edged up along a lip in the far wall. The PCs quickly realized they were watching themselves perform the Test of Faith, but they were too boggled to do much. When the Test of Faith completed, there was another flash of white light.<br />
<br />
This time, the PCs found themselves in a 60' cubic room. They were standing on the floor. On each of the four walls, there was a metallic, demonic figure with a kusari, standing on the wall as though it was a floor. On the ceiling, there were four monsters made of vines, also standing on the ceiling as though it was a floor.<br />
<br />
Obviously, this was incredibly confusing to map out. It would have been somewhat easy in a face-to-face game, because I could have used miniatures and flight stands and just put the figures at the right height. Using MapTools, which really only wants to have a single 2D map at a time, was much harder. What I ended up doing was drawing three maps: the floor/ceiling, the east wall/west wall, and the north wall/south wall. Each monster had three tokens representing its position on each of three maps, so the demon standing on the east wall had a token just off the east edge of the floor/ceiling map, in the middle of the east/west wall map, and just off the east edge of the north/south wall map. It took a little explaining, but pretty soon every got what was going on.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ZC5vdudL2LI/WShnoPPfeDI/AAAAAAAAB7I/izCM6P4fnu0Pvr3PnGBJtWJ7ypvVW-wYgCK4B/s1600/3d-map.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="316" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ZC5vdudL2LI/WShnoPPfeDI/AAAAAAAAB7I/izCM6P4fnu0Pvr3PnGBJtWJ7ypvVW-wYgCK4B/s400/3d-map.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The map, midway through the fight. Most of the vinemen are unconscious on the ceiling and most of the demons are on the floor, but Nesta and desmon and dueling on the east wall.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
The biggest downside to the maps was that I had use squares, instead of hexes, to get everything to line up consistently. As it turned out, adopting GURPS tactical combat rules to squares on the fly was probably more confusing that the 3D set-up.<br />
<br />
The monsters were obviously hostile, and combat started. The vine monsters threw enormous barbed darts that could penetrate Ariana's armor and were near certain death for Nesta, Nayla, or Mikael. The demon's chains were magically agile and fast, and they could attack and defend with them. The demons tried to beat on people, but mostly the PCs dodged or defended and counterattacked. Ariana's magic shield destroyed any inanimate object that she blocked, so several of the demons lost their weapons pretty quick.<br />
<br />
At some point, Nayla used an Imbuement. All the demons immediately freaked out and started concentrating fire on her, screaming "Not her! Not yet! The ward holds! Destroy her!" Hloomawl and Ariana did their best to protect her, but at some point Nayla got separated from them and knocked down. The demons didn't let up and she took a couple more hits, though at least one vine man on the ceiling managed to splatter one of the other demons by missing a shot at Nayla and hitting the demon instead.<br />
<br />
Eventually, Ariana and Hloomawl managed to force the demons away from Nayla and pour some healing potions on her. Nesta had jumped onto one of the walls and ran up onto the ceiling. Her magic sword was perpetually coated in a dangerous poison, and while it was entirely ineffectual against the demons, it did a number of the vine men. They could regenerate 2 HP/turn, but she was doing 70+ damage per second to them, and they just couldn't keep up. We handwaved the rest of the battle because Demons of Old and Trolls (the <a href="http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/books/dungeonfantasymonsters1/" target="_blank">DF Monsters 1</a> entries that I'd based these particular foes on) are not hard to defeat once they're down, they're tedious to defeat once they're down and I had more weirdness to get to.<br />
<br />
With the monsters eventually defeated, medium large emerald and pearl appeared floating 4' above the ground in the middle of the room. Nayla tried to grab one but couldn't touch it. Nesta grabbed the pearl and Mikael grabbed the emerald and the whole room disappeared in a flash of light.<br />
<br />
<h3>
The Test of Purpose</h3>
The PCs found themselves again in the wide corridor, without the precious stones or any evidence of their hard fight in the previous room. Ahead of them were a pair of wide wooden doors and the glowing words To be a servant of the gods is to be the tool, not the work. Expect to be valued accordingly." The door opened to Ariana's touch. Beyond the door was a huge room filled with stuff: weapons, shields, tools, and various nick-nacks and items including a quill, a set of dice, and some hand mirrors. On the far side of the room, there was a dais and an altar, with a faded fresco behind it. As Nayla entered the room, she teleported onto the dais and didn't feel like leaving it.<br />
<br />
The other PCs could approach the dais but when they got close, they felt like there was something else they needed to do and they stepped away. Nayla examined the fresco: much of it was hard to make it out, but it seemed to show an epic battle. Only two figures were clearly visible: a figure in black armor with seven spikes on the helm, and an armored cavalryman (or possibly woman) carrying a white asymmetric bow. As part of Nayla's unpublished backstory is that she briefly owned a mysterious white asymmetric bow named South Wind, and that she started being able to perform her uncanny feats of archery at that tie, this was extremely curious.<br />
<br />
Hloomawl declared that he wasn't going to touch anything, and then he felt a gentle compulsion to join Nayla on the dais. Ariana observed that not only were there a lot of things, that there were three copies of each thing: one copy made of precious metals and adorned with gems, one copy made of steel or wood and well used but well maintained, and a third copy that was rusty, decrepit, and abused. After some hesitation, Araina took a set of damaged forge tools up onto the altar. Nesta picked up a set of well-worn surveyor's tools, and Mikael finally selected a well-worn gardening shovel. When they reached the dais, the room disappeared in a flash of light.<br />
<br />
<h3>
The Trial of Fire and Water</h3>
<h3>
</h3>
The PCs again appeared in a large room. This one was checkerboarded with 20' squares of ice and 20' patches of fire, with the PCs standing in the middle of one of the patches of ice. It was freezing cold where they were. In the adjacent fire tiles, they could see weird portals in the floor that seemed to lead to the diagonally adjacent ice tiles. A strange sluglike monster, armored in ice, stood by each portal in the ice square. In each corner of the room, in the fire tiles, stood a flame lord (as the DF Monsters 1 entry). There were weird distortions in the air by each flamelord, which turned out to be one way portals that opened near the flame lords and exited near the PCs.<br />
<br />
While they were evaluating all that, the flame lords started throwing fireballs through the portals, at the PCs. The PCs immediately split up: Mikael charged northwest, Hloomawl charged northwest, Ariana charged southwest, and Nesta tripped on the ice. Nayla tried to fire an arrow through a one-way portal, but it didn't go through and hit the wall instead.<br />
<br />
The ice slugs surged to attack, growing 12' long pseudopods. Much to Ariana and Hloomawl's annoyance, their icy armor not only regrew as it was damaged, it also fastened on to anything that touched them. Although the pseudopod's attack was weak, it was obvious that meleeing these ice monsters was a good way to get bound up in ice.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3cJDp_hvvM0/WShoRTolFtI/AAAAAAAAB7U/EXWngBTng28ig4q5XCnPIZTBOFpiwoTnwCK4B/s1600/Session-whatever-part2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="395" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3cJDp_hvvM0/WShoRTolFtI/AAAAAAAAB7U/EXWngBTng28ig4q5XCnPIZTBOFpiwoTnwCK4B/s400/Session-whatever-part2.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">End of the session leaves the PCs in separate duels against ice slugs while the flame lords in the corners toss fiery doom at Nayla in the center. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Nayla used an imbuement to try to hit one of the ice slugs, and once again, all the demons went nuts and started focusing fire on her. She got hit by a couple of fireballs but they were fortunately at a long enough range that the damage was diminished. Everyone else struggled with the ice slugs, and that's where we stopped play.<br />
<br />
Over the break, people strategized and batted around some ideas for a bit. At the start of the sixteenth session, all that paid off. Hloomawl released his flail, pulled out a potion of Alchemical Fire, and set the slug he was fighting on fire. The ice holding him at bay quickly melted and he hurried over to give Nayla his potion of fire resistance. At the same time, Nayla tried to free Ariana by firing an arrow at the slug the priestess was fighting, but missed at hit Ariana instead. Gravely wounded, Ariana dropped her Fireproof prayer for Divine Might, growing huge and strong, which also made her strong enough to ignore the slug's attempts to shift her. Counting on her armor to protect her, Ariana pulled the slug through the portal into a fire square and quickly finished it off.<br />
<br />
All the while, the flame lords kept lobbing fire at Nayla. She dodged and jinked and used her allies as cover - sadly, Ariana got set on fire by a particularly potent fireball and jumped back through the portal to use the ice to put it out but fell unconscious. Mikael helped kill a couple of ice slugs and then launched scores of arrows into the flame lords. The flame lords had super-instant regeneration and were unkillable as long as they were in fire, but that didn't help much when they were taking 50+ damage a turn and they all fell to the ground. One last slug strove valiantly to kill Nayla but died slowly from fire damage from her magic bow.<br />
<br />
Nesta had been protected by a Fire Resistance potion from the start. She finally reached a flame lord, picked him up, and dumped him into the ice. With his regeneration nullified, it was trivial to kill him. With the ice slugs dead and the flame lords easily nullified, I handwaved the rest of the fight. <br />
<br />
When the monsters died, a ruby and a black opal appeared in the middle of the room. Ariana picked them both up, and the room disappeared in a flash of white light.<br />
<br />
<h3>
The Ultimate Test</h3>
The PCs appeared, unwounded, in a 30' hallway, without any of gems they'd retrieved. Ahead of them were four mudmen armed with great axes. Above the mudmen where the words "Blessed is he who lays down his life in the service of Divinity." The mudmen charged forward, all-out attacking with intent to decapitate with their axes for 6d+18 (2) damage. Only Nayla was spared.<br />
<br />
Ariana, Nesta, and Mikael ably defended themselves, and the mudmen exploded into nothingness after attacking. Hloomawl alone gritted his teeth and took the hits. Surprisingly, and somewhat annoyingly, he was only dropped to -3xHP and change, and made every HT roll to avoid death, knockdown, or stunning despite taking over 100 HP in damage. His attacker, too, disappeared, and the hallway disappeared in a flash of white light.<br />
<br />
<h3>
The Trial of Air</h3>
The PCs found themselves - alive and unwounded - in a square chamber, devoid of air, but filled with a yellow poisonous gas. A 20' tall spire stood in the center of room, topped by a glowing yellow gem. Just below the gem was a sign reading "Fight your way through this, you meddling round-eared vermin. -K" Uhuk acidly pointed out that Hloomawl doesn't actually have round ears.<br />
<br />
All of the PCs immediately began holding their breaths. As Mikael is a tall but very skinny guy and Hloomawl is a tall but very strong guy, it was trivial for Hloomawl to boost Mikael over his head, enough that Mikael could easily grab the gem. As soon as the touched it, the room disappeared in a flash of white light.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Judgment, Revelation, and New Mysteries</h3>
The PCs found themselves in a huge doomed chamber of white marble, laced with veins of gold and decorated in precious gemstones. An uncountable, unknownable, and shifting number of alcoves lines the walls, each filled with a divine power. The Gods spoke as one, and the power of the voices drove the PCs to their knees.<br />
<br />
Each of Hloomawl, Nesta, Mikael, and Ariana were judged and found wanting: Nesta and Mikael lacked faith and were unwilling to make the ultimate sacrifice; Ariana had faith but misunderstood her role and was unwilling make the ultimate sacrifice; and Hloomawl, though possessing faith and willing to sacrifice, had refused to make himself a servant. There was some scowls and sniffing, but no one really disputed the judgment.<br />
<br />
The PCs were then told, "The Usurper can not be truly defeated without the Hope. The Usurper has locked the Gods and the Hope away behind these five wards.You have destroyed one of the wards, but to to truly liberate your lands, you must liberate the gods and liberate the Hope. You must destroy the other wards." As they heard those words, they knew the location of the other wards.<br />
<br />
Finally, Nayla was addressed individually. "Harbinger, Battle Maiden, Mistress of South Wind: You have failed before, and darkness has benighted the land. You have been given another chance. Free the Hope, defeat the Usurper, and bring a new dawn of freedom to the lands."<br />
<br />
With that, there was a final flash of white light and they appeared, whole and unharmed, without the gems but with all the items they had used in Stinecrice, back on the surface inside the stone circle. <br />
<h3>
<br />"I don't understand what just happened!"</h3>
As Ariana has Guilt Complex, Kevin decided that she went into despondency on learning that she'd failed her god. She dropped her magic hammer and started trudging off into the swamp. Hloomawl, a bit more sanguine, picked up the hammer and trotted after her. Nayla followed, complaining that she had no idea about what had just happened, why she'd been singled out, or how or when she had failed before.<br />
<br />
The rest of the Stinecrice garrison was soon on the PCs' heels. The flying boat was no longer capable of flying, but it still floated, so Hloomawl improvised a pole and took it deeper into the marshes. The PCs spent the rest of the day dodging the orcs, occasionally battling groups of orcs, and restraining Ariana's suicidal urges to charge the orcs and end it all. The next day, they flew back to the army at the fortress of Hortskink and had a council of war.<br />
<br />
They quickly realized that although they had a mission from the gods to destroy the other wards, there were severe difficulties in doing so. The closest ward was in the dwarf lands, which is an active war zone between the Empire and the last of the dwarves. Two of the other wards were on the far side of the continent. The fifth ward was possibly the closest, but it was in the middle of the Dodenrike, the lands of the dead where nothing lives. In the end, they elected to continue their plan to liberate the country of Hanist and move north to aid the dwarves.<br />
<br />
After some prodding, Hloomawl recalled the legends of the Incarnate Hope: a group of demi-gods made flesh that had fought against Dread Emperor Karsen at the founding of the Empire and lost. As Karsen is generally depicted as a man in black armor with a crown of seven black spikes, and because of various other clues, Kevin and Eric figured it out: Nayla was the first of the Incarnate Hope to have been reincarnated, and she was charged to gather the others and strike down Karsen. It seems likely that all the PCs are potential demigods.<br />
<br />
I felt this realization was a good place to stop the session, so even though it was a little early, that's when we stopped.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Review of Play</h3>
There's so much to say that I'm not even sure where to start. At the end, I think and then I'll work backwards.<br />
<br />
Last things first: I'm very excited, but also a little ambivalent, about the fact that the game is embracing its epicness, and the scale of the epicness is revealed. It was always my intent that the PCs would become demi-gods, and though they aren't even there yet, that outcome is now openly on the table. I put clues about that into the backstory from the start, but I didn't play them up very much. The events at Stinecrice where the first time when those clues were really pointed out to the players, and they picked them up and figured them out pretty quickly. So that was a big pay-off and I feel really proud of them, for figuring it out, and myself, for threading that fine needle between "so obscure that you have to tell them outright" and "so obvious that there's no moment of frission when they put everything together."<br />
<br />
The reason I'm a little ambivalent is because I feel like there might have been a bit of bait and switch involved. I'm not sure how true that is - it it really bait and switch to go from a <a href="http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/TheSilmarillion" target="_blank">very loose pastiche of Tolkien</a> to an even looser pastiche of an obscure alternate setting for <a href="http://l5r.wikia.com/wiki/Legend_of_the_Five_Rings_Wiki" target="_blank">Legends of the Five Rings</a>? That's what I'm doing, basically. I've been hinting for a while that I've been okay with the PCs becoming fantasy super-heroes. I don't think that fantasy super heroes was really in the original campaign precis, since originally the game was "justify Mark's purchase of <a href="http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/books/masscombat/" target="_blank">GURPS Mass Combat</a>" but I don't think that anyone feels betrayed by the change in emphasis.<br />
<br />
Next I'm going to work backwards through the trials and testings, and doing the testings first. My concept for what was going to happen in Stinecrice evolved as I thought about it, but one thing settled out pretty early on: Stinecrice was both a challenge to defeat Karsen's defenses and a mechanism for the God's to find new priests. The challenge part settled out pretty quickly, but the search mechanism wandered around for a bit. I was on the <a href="http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?t=146472" target="_blank">GURPS Discord</a> channel and saw a chance remark about tests that didn't test the PCs' ability, but instead testing their intentions. That really crystallized what I needed to do: come up with a bunch of tests that weren't so much about the numbers on the sheet or even the cleverness of the players, but on their willingness to do things. I didn't want to make them too easy and I really didn't want to make them too hard: I knew that at lot of them would possibly come off as pixel-bitching. The end result were fairly simple tests, with somewhat cryptic instructions written in glowing letters.<br />
<br />
The last test was the ultimate sacrifice. I deliberately set it up as a combat situation, with an initiative count and a hex map, to lure the PCs into familiar thinking. Uhuk commented afterwards that she knew something was up, because the straightforward combat encounters didn't have glowing instructions and the weird tests did. I was a little surprised that Kevn didn't make the same leap. Overall, I thought this was a pretty straightforward and fair test: the instructions were fairly straightforward, and it only required the a player to be willing to let his character die to pass.<br />
<br />
The middle test was probably the most obscure, but I love the <a href="http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/Chalion" target="_blank">Bujold quote</a> that was the basis for the instructions so much that I couldn't pass it by. It also had elements of the chalice choosing scene from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, so I felt I was on pretty good territory, difficulty wise. Uhuk missed that session, so I'd asked her ahead of time what Hloomawl would do in that situation, and it turned out fairly well.<br />
<br />
The first test was the easiest and most obvious. I wouldn't say it was directly lifted from <a href="http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Film/IndianaJonesAndTheLastCrusade" target="_blank">Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade</a>, but the basic concept was from that. My biggest problem was handling Nayla: I loved the idea of the personal bridge that only she could see and interact with, but since no one knew that Nayla was a demi-god at that point, it got confusing and a couple of people almost stepped off to their deaths. I probably should have just teleported her across the room.<br />
<br />
I was sad that none of the PCs passed all the trials. That might be a sign that the puzzles were too obscure, but I talked it over with the players afterwards. They all mostly agreed that I'd given adequate clues, but they'd just overthought the puzzles. They couldn't believe that the answers were as obvious as as they seemed to be, and then after they completed each one, they said "no, that's exactly what it was." So for those puzzles, I didn't do as good as job on threading the needle between obscure and obvious.<br />
<br />
The trials were meant to be hard, and weird. <a href="http://dungeonfantastic.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Peter Dell'Orto</a> has said that a good rule for stocking a dungeon is use the cool things as early as possible, because you can't guarantee the players will make it to the secret lair in the eleventh floor on the dungoen but you can expet they'll make it to the third or fourth room. This was something of the same principle: I thought it would be cool to have fights with weird gravity like the ones in <a href="http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Film/DoctorStrange2016" target="_blank">Dr. Strange</a> or with portals like in <a href="http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Videogame/Portal" target="_blank">Portal</a>. Stinecrice was a good opportunity to have weird stuff happen and reinforce the idea that they were in another plane of existence. So that worked out well together.<br />
<br />
The trial of air was a nothing-burger. I figured that the combination of poison air, a climbing challenge, and the lack of visible enemies would make it a good change of pace from the previous trials and also challenging. I forgot/did not plan for the fact that Uhuk's characters tend to be big and very strong and that Mikael was tall, so it was pretty trivial for Hloomawl to boost Mikael and for him to grab the stone. Not every challenge can be challenging and at least it moved quickly.<br />
<br />
The trial of ice and fire was interesting. We started it at the end of session 15 and finished it in the next session, and as designed it was possibly a little too tough. Kevin was convinced it was a nigh-unwinnable total party kill, whereas I always thought it was a breeze if the PCs just had 5 potions of Fire Resistance: drink potions, ignore the attacks of the flame lords, wrestle the slugs into the fire areas, beat them to death, then go chase down the flame lords. As it turned out, the PCs mostly used alchemical fire to defeat the ice slugs, but I maintain that they weren't necessary. The flame lords, despite their superfast regeneration, turned out to be very vulnerable to arrows. I had planned for an exciting chase and wrestle as the PCs had to drag each fire lord into the ice to kill him, but as it turned out, even regenerating their full HP every turn wasn't sufficient. The actual portals didn't have much effect in the game, but Kevin used one a couple of times to tactically transition between ice and fire in a hurry, so they did have some effect.<br />
<br />
The trial of metal and wood was just strange. That was the plan, so good, but I still feel I may have bit off more than I could chew on that one. I had thought that the 3-D projection of the walls was fairly clear, and I guess it was no less clear than any other way I could have done it, but it was still confusing. The trolls that I used for the vinemen were terrible: regenerating 1-2 HP/turn, in a GURPS combat, is just not a useful ability. I had to retroactively give them Homogeneous and recalculate the damage they'd take to prevent them from just dying to arrow storms, and even then, they were clearly a secondary threat. As soon as Nesta got up among them with her sword of massive poisoning, they just dropped so far into the negatives that they weren't a threat. Nayla was almost killed, but mostly because of poor PC tactics: she moved out of the reach of the two guys with Shield Wall Parry and got knocked prone and subjected to a couple of rounds of fire from the vinemen. The melee guys then beat on the demons ineffectually instead of standing over her, providing cover and shield blocks against incoming attacks, which would have done a lot more to reduce the risk.<br />
<br />
Like I said, I had always intended for the PCs to become demi-gods, though the exact details of how that will work are still unknown to the PCs. The process and meaning is complicated, for a variety of reasons, including my hatred of inheritance as a source of power and the need to be able to swap PCs in and out of the game as players leave or characters die. Nayla as the first demi-god to emerge was mostly a matter of happenstance: Kiara had chosen the default Imbuement package for her, and that meant she had Imbuement without the Magic or Divine modifiers. Since she was clearly doing supernatural things with her arrows, in my mind that meant her cosmic nature was leaking through. But obviously it had to be a secret to the player and the character until things were revealed. Kiara was charmingly flustered every time Nayla got a pass on a testing or got confusing information from the gods, so that worked very well and was entertaining.<br />
<br />
The battle at the surface of Stinecrice was another mixed bag. Kevin and Uhuk correctly figured out that they needed to block for Mikael and Nayla, but the archers couldn't figure out that they correct way to handle charging horses is to shoot out the horses' legs, not bounce arrows of armor. They also each kept shooting at a different orc knight, lettting them use their blocks effectively. If they'd concentrated fire, so that the same orc had to block two different attacks, they would have done much better.<br />
<br />
Anyway, all in all, these were an excellent trio of sessions. Mysteries were revealed and clues put into context, but there are new mysteries and clues in their place. The weird battles were weird, but (mostly) enjoyable, and reminded everyone that the game involves a lot of magic.<br />
<br />
<h3>
What Next?</h3>
I need to do a lot of maps and stuff that I've been neglected. The PCs have pretty much conquered the entirety of southern Hanist, the starting campaign area, and I need campaign maps for the rest of Hanist and the surrounding countries. There's still some debate as to whether they're going to west and clear out a border, east and try to make contact with the minotaurs, lizardmen, and fae, or north to get to the dwarves and the second God Ward quicker. No matter what, I'll need to prepare and make maps.Mark Langsdorfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00301984145275679568noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1287550692312955328.post-82059936313769552912017-03-07T14:13:00.002-08:002017-03-07T14:14:03.248-08:00New Dawn Session 8: The Going Gets Tough<b>Precis</b>: The Resistance goes to explore an evil sorcerer-general's castle, and finds outs to their dismay that evil sorcerers-general can teleport home in a hurry when they need to.<br />
<br />
I ran the eighth session of New Dawn last Thursday night. It was a good session, though my prep work for it was a little rushed. Fundamentally, from the GM's perspective, it had the disadvantage of being something of a filler session. That's not completely accurate, as it was more of session to set-up of some revelations. It should pay-off pretty quickly, and it had merit on its own, but it wasn't as great as it could be.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Cast of Characters</h3>
<a href="http://noschoolgrognard.blogspot.com/search/label/New%20Dawn" target="_blank">New Dawn</a> is a troupe style game, with each player having two characters. One team primarily does military stuff; the other team has been doing delving and diplomacy. This session focused on the diplomacy team.<br />
<ul>
<li><a class="g-profile" href="https://plus.google.com/115373610030621027923" target="_blank">+Uhuk of the Guard</a>'s <a href="http://newdawn.wikia.com/wiki/ND/Attivi_Valar" target="_blank">Attivi</a> Valar, a human sorcerer specializing in mind control.</li>
<li><a class="g-profile" href="https://plus.google.com/116541461100903445865" target="_blank">+Eric Schmidt</a>'s <a href="http://newdawn.wikia.com/wiki/ND/Nesta_Bowen" target="_blank">Nesta</a> Bowen, a human master spy with a grudge against the orcs.</li>
<li><a class="g-profile" href="https://plus.google.com/100396225121044993077" target="_blank">+Eilmyn Davidson</a>'s <a href="http://newdawn.wikia.com/wiki/ND/Michael_Jones" target="_blank">Michael</a> Jones, a Squallite archer.</li>
<li><a class="g-profile" href="https://plus.google.com/115413841072686813753" target="_blank">+Kevin Smyth</a>'s <a href="http://newdawn.wikia.com/wiki/ND/Aisling_Mhic_Muiris" target="_blank">Aisling</a> Mhic Muiris, a Nymph ambassador from the Fae court.</li>
<li>Kiara Schmidt's <a href="http://newdawn.wikia.com/wiki/ND/Nayla" target="_blank">Nayla</a>, a supernaturally skilled archer.</li>
</ul>
<br />
<h3>
GM Difficulties</h3>
Like I said in the <a href="http://noschoolgrognard.blogspot.com/2017/03/new-dawn-session-7-some-orcs-are-stupid.html" target="_blank">write-up for the seventh session</a>, my initial plan for this session was horrible. The PCs needed to complete a pair of minor battles to liberate Cape Har and earn a lot of character points, which they needed, but two minor battles is not a sufficient narrative thread to hang a session on. I mostly dealt with this problem by ignoring it, which was a bad decision, and finally around Tuesday I confessed to the players that while I wanted the climax for the liberation of Cape Har, it wasn't going to happen narratively and did they mind if we just skipped that and moved on? They were okay with it, so we did.<br />
<br />
By scrapping a weak plot, I got to replace it with a stronger plot: the investigation of the mysterious Black Library. The Library is a repository of books on magic in southwest Hanist, believed to be owned by a sorcerer-general named Arcane who left Hanist to fight in the civil war at the capitol. All that is the rumor, anyway, but the Empire's sorcerer-generals deliberate cultivate an aura of mystery so parts of that are not actually true.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Crossing the River</h3>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4axxxnbXKxc/WL8nKDAA92I/AAAAAAAAB2I/RwsQg0zdPu0caLd5YhsqnRKpvELovTwKwCLcB/s1600/Session8a.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4axxxnbXKxc/WL8nKDAA92I/AAAAAAAAB2I/RwsQg0zdPu0caLd5YhsqnRKpvELovTwKwCLcB/s400/Session8a.png" width="221" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The PCs head south, fighting battles at the<br />ford and again at Duzen Iken.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The game started with the PCs figuring out which characters were going to accompany the army south. I didn't have a strong care, though I thought it made sense for both of the magic focused characters to go, they needed someone who could lead the troops, and it would be helpful if they had an intelligence analyst, a scout, and a strong guy. Kevin was a little perturbed when he realized that meant leaving the leadership to Skyler, who has a tendency to only do all-out attacks and take huge casualties against skilled enemies. But Eilmyn promised to be sensible, and Kevin played Ariana instead of Aisling.<br />
<br />
<br />
Skyler led the field army (reinforced by some recently trained heavy infantry and the stone golem they'd found beneath Costvud) down to the ferry and crossed. There was an orc garrison company on the other side of the ferry, but excellent reconnaissance and Intelligence Analysis on Nesta's part meant that the PC's managed to surprise them. Skyler launched three all-out attacks, and the orcs didn't manage to rally until after the second one, after they'd already taken 85% casualties while delivering none in return. The orc commander was actually especially skilled at attacking, and relatively skilled at Strategy, but was had something like a -13 skill penalty to Skyler's +19 skill bonus when the orc finally got his troops organized to attack. So that didn't work.<br />
<br />
A pair of wolf-riders managed to flee the battle. The PCs could have sent the golem and their fairly incompetent heavy cavalry after them, but I warned them that they didn't know where any other orc forces might be in the vicinity. They decided not to risk their golem in a possible ambush, but instead made a forced march on Duzen Iken, the castle guarding the Black Library, to limit the orcs' ability to bring in reinforcements.<br />
<br />
<h3>
The Battles at Duzen Iken</h3>
Duzen Iken was held by a company of the Pale Hands. Unlike the Red Swords the PCs had fought at the ferry, the Pale Hands were well supplied, well led, well trained, and reinforced by a squad of ogres and some extra wizards. They actually had more troop strength than the PCs' forces, though the PCs had the advantage in special classes, especially armor and engineering, courtesy of a giant stone golem. Nesta managed to learn they were in for a hard fight before the battle, but she didn't immediately learn that the orc commander, Major Kong, was a master of siege warfare.<br />
<br />
Skyler, being Skyler, launched an all-out assault on the walls as soon as the PCs arrived. And being Skyler, he managed to win that round, delivering 30% casualties to the orcs and only taking 10% in return while managing to breach at least some of the walls. Doing so took until dark, and the orcs' infravision gave them an advantage at night - or at least reduced their relative disadvantage.<br />
<br />
Eilmyn decided to be sensible for a change, and initiated a deliberate assault over the next two rounds. This reduced the value of the fortress and reduced the risk that Skyler's troops would take substantial casualties, and Eilmyn continued to roll well and grind the orcs down. By the next evening, the orcs were down to 10% effectives in one last tower, but Resistance scouts reported three more companies of orcs approaching Duzen Iken. Skyler launched one all-out assault, slaughtered the last of the Pale Hands, and started organizing his troops to defend the castle they had just taken.<br />
<br />
We didn't actually play out the orc assault. The orcs in question, another three companies of Red Hands, were in low supply and had lazy leadership that didn't try to arrive at the castle quickly. The three of them combined actually had less effective troop strength than the single company of Pale Hands. Since Skyler had already beaten a more powerful with a better general and superior defensive position, I handwaved the fight against the Red Hands. The most likely result was Skyler all-out defending the castle against some slow orc assaults, and then charging out to finish off the wounded. I didn't want to play through all that because I had other things I wanted to accomplish in this session.<br />
<br />
<h3>
The Mesa and the Black Library</h3>
One thing that was very weird about Duzen Iken was the small mesa in the center of it. There was a roughly 80' tall, 300' wide mesa within the castle walls, and there was a small forest on the top of the mesa. There was a narrow path spiraling up the side of the mesa.<br />
<br />
I emphasized to the PCs that southwest Hanist was a land of rolling hills, forests, and coastal plains, and giant mesas were not part of the normal environment. They all agreed that it was weird and needed investigation.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Brute Force and Ignorant Trapfinding</h3>
At the base of the path was a minimal gate and a warning not to pass. After some jockeying for position, Arianna and Skyler decided to walk up the path. I immediately had them roll Hearing at a penalty, and when they both succeeded, I told them they heard twangs and saw a pair of crossbow bolts fly out of the side of the mesa, aimed for them. Both of them failed their defenses and while Arianna's amazing plate harness bounced the bolt, the damage roll (3d+5) was pretty decent for Skyler.<br />
<br />
We immediately had a discussion about what kind of armor Skyler was wearing. When Skyler was first created, he was wearing DR 1 leather armor ("a bomber jacket and leather dance pants" as I described it). Despite several opportunities since then, he hadn't upgraded his armor since despite the availability of high quality, orc plate scavenged from the battlefield. After some discussion, he ended up in some of that armor and only took a grave wound. He and Arianna retreated, Arianna used her new Lay on Hands prayer to heal him, and then used Flesh Wounds to heal herself up from the transferred damage. The PCs heard some clicking and muffled thuds from the area near the crossbows, but ignored them.<br />
<br />
Arianna and Skyler proceeded up the path again, and what do you know, but they got shot by crossbows again. Arianna managed to block with her new metal shield, but the arrow went right through it - but without enough force to also penetrate her armor. Skyler got lucky this time and his armor bounced the bolt. Skyler fell back, and Arianna moved forward, and Nesta ran up to get next to Arianna while the crosbows reloaded.<br />
<br />
Finally Arianna just walked up to the crossbows and covered them with her shield while everyone else walked forward. So that's how the PCs got past the crossbow trap. After that, Nesta started checking the path for traps, though she didn't find any.<br />
<br />
<h3>
The Black Library</h3>
At the top of the mesa, hidden behind the trees, was a nice villa with boarded windows and padlocked doors. This was probably Arcane's house. There was some discussion about breaking in through the windows, but they followed a trail to a pair of double doors. After Nesta checked for traps, Arianna smashed the lock with her magic hammer that does extra damage to inanimate objects and opened the doors.<br />
<br />
The doors opened onto a large room with bookshelves, magical circles, alchemical knicknacks, and an ugly altar to dark gods. Most important, though, was a 7' tall crystal statue of a man that charged forward to attack.<br />
<br />
The resulting fight was pretty ugly. The golem was fast, nigh invulnerable, strong, skilled, and backed up by three more that trickled in over the next couple of rounds. Attivi managed to daze one with a lucky magic spell, and Arianna crippled another with a solid hit to the knee, but most of the PC's attacks were parried or bounced against strong armor. Nayla's bow, for instance, wasn't doing much. One of the golems managed to do a maximum critical hit punch to Attivi, sending the sorceror flying and leaving him 1 HP away from a death check.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Things Get Worse</h3>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-fQHXT1DTNiE/WL8nKDogWwI/AAAAAAAAB2M/Bh2IiNFAZfAyTb6rz1DTwCFMWXBfl3k9ACLcB/s1600/Session8b.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-fQHXT1DTNiE/WL8nKDogWwI/AAAAAAAAB2M/Bh2IiNFAZfAyTb6rz1DTwCFMWXBfl3k9ACLcB/s320/Session8b.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Arcane arrives. Attivi lies on the ground after being <br />smashed by a crystal golem.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
When Arianna had destroyed the padlock, Attivi alone had heard a weird magical peal. It was both nearby, and strangely far away. No one was really sure what it meant.<br />
<br />
They found out when they heard a clap of thunder, and saw Arcane teleport in. She said something chiding like, "What, when the cat is away the mice will play?" and initially assumed that the PCs were orcs since Skyler and Nesta were in full orc plate. But Arianna looked different, so Arcane said "Who are you? Don't bother answering, that's just a rhetorical question. I'll find out myself." She then cast her Mass Mind Read/Mind Probe spell (with stun as a linked effect, because Arcane hates it when people she's trying to interrogate interfere). Since just about every PC had a Will of 11, they were not particularly successful in resisting a high IQ/high Sorcery talent super sorcerer and had their brains peeled.<br />
<br />
At this point, I ended the session. It was late, Emily was tired, and I am a firm believer in ending sessions on cliffhangers whenever possible.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Review of Play</h3>
Like I said, this session was a lot of set-up. Mostly, it set up the arrival of Arcane, which is a pay-off all of its own. If the PCs can defeat Arcane, there are going to be other pay-offs as they learn more about the nature of the sorcerer-generals of the Empire of Night.<br />
<br />
This session featured several<a href="http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WakeUpCallBoss" target="_blank"> wake-up call bosses</a>. The improved quality of the Pale Hands compared to most of the orc riff-raff the PCs have dealt with up to this point was certainly noticeable, and the PCs handled it well. The crystal golems, in contrast, were a horror show from the PC perspective. Kevin thought they were doing okay, but from my side of the GM's screen, they were losing badly and having Attivi nearly get killed just reinforced that fact. And obviously, Arcane is an entire different level of threat than anything the PCs have fought to this point. I have a good idea of her abilities, and she is meant to be a challenge to a group of delvers and will deliver.<br />
<br />
A large part of the problem is that the PCs, although they've earned a fair number of CP, mundane equipment upgrades, and magical equipment, have mostly not optimized themselves at all. As far as I know, Arianna is the only PC who has spent all her earned CP, upgraded all her equipment, and maximized her magical gear. Attivi and Skyler have spent parts of their CP but don't have impressive magical gear yet (and Eilmyn needed to be reminded to upgrade Skyler's armor during the sesssion!), and Nesta and Nayla are pretty close to being the same characters they started as.<br />
<br />
I have sent out some emails, encouraging the PCs to upgrade their characters and reminding them of the available resources. Even though I generally don't let people upgrade in mid-combat, I'm going to make an exception in this case. I don't know if they will actually do so, but I'm okay with Arcane killing some Resistance leaders to emphasize the idea that scary people are scary.<br />
<br />
<h3>
What Next?</h3>
Next session is obviously going to deal with Arcane. It should be a good fight, assumign the PCs gear up appropriately.Mark Langsdorfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00301984145275679568noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1287550692312955328.post-51065626690368141972017-03-03T14:04:00.000-08:002017-03-04T08:09:28.582-08:00New Dawn Session 7: (Some) Orcs Are Stupid<b>Precis</b>: The PCs, having infiltrated a castle, take it over and use it as base to liberate the countryside from the orcs.<br />
<br />
I ran the seventh session of New Dawn last week. It was a good session and a lot of fun at the time, but for some reason I didn't do all my follow-up immediately and that included not writing up a blog post. So now I am going back and fixing that.<br />
<br />
This session finished up the infiltration of Otern county. It was another cascade of errors by the orcs, and the PCs quickly triumphed.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Cast of Characters</h3>
<a href="http://noschoolgrognard.blogspot.com/search/label/New%20Dawn" target="_blank">New Dawn</a> is a troupe style game, with each player having two characters. One team primarily does military stuff; the other team has been doing delving and diplomacy. This session focused on the diplomacy team.<br />
<ul>
<li><a class="g-profile" href="https://plus.google.com/115373610030621027923" target="_blank">+Uhuk of the Guard</a>'s <a href="http://newdawn.wikia.com/wiki/ND/Attivi_Valar" target="_blank">Attivi</a> Valar, a human sorcerer specializing in mind control.</li>
<li><a class="g-profile" href="https://plus.google.com/116541461100903445865" target="_blank">+Eric Schmidt</a>'s <a href="http://newdawn.wikia.com/wiki/ND/Nesta_Bowen" target="_blank">Nesta</a> Bowen, a human master spy with a grudge against the orcs.</li>
<li><a class="g-profile" href="https://plus.google.com/100396225121044993077" target="_blank">+Eilmyn Davidson</a>'s <a href="http://newdawn.wikia.com/wiki/ND/Michael_Jones" target="_blank">Michael</a> Jones, a Squallite archer.</li>
<li><a class="g-profile" href="https://plus.google.com/115413841072686813753" target="_blank">+Kevin Smyth</a>'s <a href="http://newdawn.wikia.com/wiki/ND/Aisling_Mhic_Muiris" target="_blank">Aisling</a> Mhic Muiris, a Nymph ambassador from the Fae court.</li>
<li>Kiara Schmidt's <a href="http://newdawn.wikia.com/wiki/ND/Nayla" target="_blank">Nayla</a>, a supernaturally skilled archer.</li>
</ul>
<br />
<h3>
The Conquest of Hortskink </h3>
Play picked up where <a href="http://noschoolgrognard.blogspot.com/2017/02/new-dawn-session-6-orcs-are-jerks.html" target="_blank">session 6</a> ended: the PCs were widely separated as they ran around Hortskink castle. I pretty much went in initiative order and gave each PC a little bit of action, and then went onto the next person.<br />
<br />
Nayla moved through the inner courtyard toward the only barracks that was lit. She peeked through the arrowslits and saw a bunch of orcs putting on armor. She fired a scattershot arrow through the arrow slits and did a little damage, but not much. Since she was running out of fatigue, she climbed up the barracks wall to hide on the roof and rest a bit.<br />
<br />
Attivi, Aisling, and Michael moved to the southeast tower with plans to get to the wall and make sure there weren't any orcs left. Aisling got into the tower first and encountered an orc: he fell for her nymph charm and let himself get fast-talked into believing that she was a collaborator taking shelter from the rebels. The orc turned to the stairwell and readied his crossbow to shoot Attivi, but Aisling brained him from behind, The orc had forgotten to put on his helmet and went down immediately. Attivi and Michael caught up with Aisling and they all went onto the walls and starting moving clockwise, looking for orcs.<br />
<br />
Nesta was in the gatehouse when she heard another orc enter. They fumbled around in the dark and I think Nesta ended up behind the orc at close range. She backstabbed the orc and then moved north to clear the walls. I think this was another orc too stupid to put on his helmet.<br />
<br />
After a couple more minutes, most of the PCs were in the northeastern tower and the orcs in the barracks were armed, armored, formed up, and ready to squelch the rebellion. Sadly for them, Lieutenant Hok blew an easy Tactics roll and took them out through the main courtyard instead of going up onto the walls. Most of the PCs hid in the tower and worried about what to do: two lightly armored fighters, an archer, and a semi-competent sorcerer versus eight heavily armored and armored orc infantrymen backed by five orcs with crossbows and a pair of goblin archers was not exactly a recipe for success.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-XlwVA7fdtsk/WLnn6bCap5I/AAAAAAAAB1s/TAV0byDN7r0nqYX_GlzkMmH2hodJeKR8QCLcB/s1600/Session7Tac.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-XlwVA7fdtsk/WLnn6bCap5I/AAAAAAAAB1s/TAV0byDN7r0nqYX_GlzkMmH2hodJeKR8QCLcB/s400/Session7Tac.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The orcs advance to the south in formation, but Nayla perches on the corner<br />
of the barracks with intent to do harm.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Fortunately, Nayla was behind and above the orcs, and she landed an overstrength Scattershot arrow in the middle of their formation. Orc infantry plate armor doesn't cover the back of the legs, and the crossbow orc's armor doesn't cover their arms, and most of the orcs ended with crippled legs or arms. We could have played it out from there, but had gone from massed orcs to crippled orcs caught in a crossfire and didn't bother.<br />
<br />
<h3>
The Liberation of Otern </h3>
The PCs decided that they would just hold onto Hortskink, and maybe even liberate all of Otern while they waited for Trahaern. They went out recruiting the next day, and kept on recruiting for days after that. Otern wasn't exactly prime militia recruiting country, and so they were going for large number of poorly equipped and badly trained troops. I think they ended with 800 or so.<br />
<br />
As part of my prep for this game, I'd randomly rolled for Captain Grunak's abilities: Strategy-9, Intelligence Analysis-9, Leadership-13, Overconfidence, and Megalomania. I also rolled for the captains of the other nearby orc companies, and while some were more competent, Overconfidence and Megalomania were a common theme. I'd also tracked out Grunak's movement: he'd spent three days heading down to the Engenstut border and waiting for reinforcements from some other orcs, then had advanced on Swartun, besieged the PC's training forces, and gotten his tail thoroughly kicked over the course of two days before finally realizing he was losing and retreating back to Hortskink. The point was, when the orcs returned to challenge the PCs, the orc army was at 40% of its nominal strength and being led by an idiot with delusions of grandeur.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-EK4ViT8TRZs/WLnmYDv-WAI/AAAAAAAAB1k/H7Nl5hJBEbEdO3JVJIUshEm3C6uWGd87QCLcB/s1600/Session7Map.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="357" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-EK4ViT8TRZs/WLnmYDv-WAI/AAAAAAAAB1k/H7Nl5hJBEbEdO3JVJIUshEm3C6uWGd87QCLcB/s400/Session7Map.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From Hortskink, they went to Mayla and south to deal with the orcs at Crickfeeg.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Nesta's scouts gave the PC's plenty of warning of the orc advance, and Aisling prepared a raid. Meanwhile, Captain Grunak tried to launch a probe against the castle gates and then have his cavalry race around to the "undefended" back wall of the castle. This worked very poorly for him and his force was wiped out, leaving him to flee south to the orc stronghold of Crickfeeg. The next day, the PCs took half their army and pursued.<br />
<br />
Captain Grunak was theoretically superior to Captain Hulg at Crickfeeg, but since it was Hulg's company that had reinforced Grunak for the disaster at Swartun, Hulg refused to turn commander over to the idiot. Hulg made a good defense at Crickfeeg, but Aisling was a superior leader and ground him down.<br />
<br />
We ended the session there.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Off Screen: the Liberation of Stineyer and Cape Har</h3>
At this point, there were two orc companies on Cape Har: another at the orc stronghold of Niswunstine to the east and one at the fortress of Travgrave in Stineyer. I had some vague ideas that session 8 would deal with those battles, but since the PCs had already demonstrated that Trahaern's army could defeat an orc company holding a fortress, and the combined forces would smash an orc company holding a stronghold, I didn't think that would be a very good session. Instead, we all agreed to handwave those two fights and move onto something more interesting.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Review of Play </h3>
Part of the backstory of New Dawn is that there was a coup at the Imperial capitol, and most of the orc garrisons went there to fight in the resulting civil war. The remaining forces are generally not very good, and were left behind because the generals needed someone to garrison the lands but didn't want to leave behind their best warfighters. Thus, the initial forces arrayed against the PCs are not very good, and the PCs are easily defeating them.<br />
<br />
There's something of a <a href="http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SortingAlgorithmOfEvil" target="_blank">Sorting Algorithm of Evil</a> effect going on here, somewhat intentionally on my part. The first forces the PCs are fighting are scattered companies, led by incompetents, and undersupplied. Over time, those companies are going to get fully supplied, merge into regiments and eventually legions, and start getting some more competent leadership. Ideally, the PCs' forces will have improved by then and will continue to overmatch them. But for now, it explains why the orcs are so bad and make so many suboptimal choices like forgetting to put on their helmets when their castle is under attack: these are the dumbest and laziest of the orcs, left behind because their leadership knew they were dumb and lazy.<br />
<br />
Aside from criminal stupidity on the part of the orcs, this was a good session: a little bit of PC scale combat at the start, some role-playing and decision making in the middle, and two small battles at the end to good purpose. I'm getting a little better at pacing the plots for this style of game, which makes me happy. On the downside, preparing for these sessions is a lot of work, and unlike a large dungeon like <a href="http://noschoolgrognard.blogspot.com/search/label/Castle%20of%20Horrors" target="_blank">Castle of Horrors</a>, I can't do prep in advance when I have time and let it carry me for a couple of weeks when I'm busy. Every session ends up getting prepped in the week before it, and if I'm busy or uninspired then the prep is rushed or unsatisfactory. That's frustrating, but I don't see an easy way around that.<br />
<br />
<h3>
What's Next?</h3>
Like I said at the start, for some reason, I wasn't up to writing this blog post or figuring out CP awards immediately after the game. I let doing that slide, which cascaded to me not really doing prep work until Tuesday or Wednesday for a game I run on Thursday, and then having to work late on both those days. All of which did not help that I was a little uninspired about the idea of doing two rote battles.<br />
<br />
Fortunately, I whined to the players, and they all agreed to handwave the liberation of Stineyer and focus instead on the assault on the Black Library. The Black Library is a semi-legendary magical library owned by Arcane, one of the sorcerer-generals of the Empire of Night, that just happened to be across the river from Otern. As it turned out, the orc garrison at the Black Library was not a bunch of worthless idiots, but instead a hand-picked force, so it served as something of a <a href="http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WakeUpCallBoss" target="_blank">Wake-Up Call Boss</a>. But that's a tale for another post.Mark Langsdorfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00301984145275679568noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1287550692312955328.post-30340547151853938072017-02-17T09:57:00.002-08:002017-03-04T10:38:11.180-08:00New Dawn Session 6: Orcs are Jerks<b>Precis</b>: The Resistance infiltrates an orc castle and wackiness ensues.<br />
<br />
I ran the sixth session of New Dawn, my GURPS Fantasy Mass Combat game, last night. This session was went back to the game's root in Midnight, since the PCs were operating covertly in orc territory. It was a very fun session, and a little silly, as we got to see the full powers of a nymph diplomat in action. We also got to use my rules for <a href="http://noschoolgrognard.blogspot.com/2017/02/covert-social-engineering.html" target="_blank">finding people covertly</a>, though that only made up a small part of the session.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Cast of Characters</h3>
<a href="http://noschoolgrognard.blogspot.com/search/label/New%20Dawn" target="_blank">New Dawn</a> is a troupe style game, with each player having two characters. One
team primarily does military stuff; the other team has been doing
delving and diplomacy. This session focused on the diplomacy team. <br />
<ul>
<li><a class="g-profile" href="https://plus.google.com/115373610030621027923" target="_blank">+Uhuk of the Guard</a>'s <a href="http://newdawn.wikia.com/wiki/ND/Attivi_Valar" target="_blank">Attivi</a> Valar, a human sorcerer specializing in mind control.</li>
<li><a class="g-profile" href="https://plus.google.com/116541461100903445865" target="_blank">+Eric Schmidt</a>'s <a href="http://newdawn.wikia.com/wiki/ND/Nesta_Bowen" target="_blank">Nesta</a> Bowen, a human master spy with a grudge against the orcs.</li>
<li><a class="g-profile" href="https://plus.google.com/100396225121044993077" target="_blank">+Eilmyn Davidson</a>'s <a href="http://newdawn.wikia.com/wiki/ND/Michael_Jones" target="_blank">Michael</a> Jones, a Squallite archer.</li>
<li><a class="g-profile" href="https://plus.google.com/115413841072686813753" target="_blank">+Kevin Smyth</a>'s <a href="http://newdawn.wikia.com/wiki/ND/Aisling_Mhic_Muiris" target="_blank">Aisling</a> Mhic Muiris, a Nymph ambassador from the Fae court.</li>
<li>Kiara Schmidt's <a href="http://newdawn.wikia.com/wiki/ND/Nayla" target="_blank">Nayla</a>, a supernaturally skilled archer.</li>
<li><i><a href="http://newdawn.wikia.com/wiki/ND/Finbar_Gullvan" target="_blank">Finbar</a> Gullvan</i>, the old man of the Resistance </li>
</ul>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UUH1fBPmAaE/WKcqzr4Zw2I/AAAAAAAAB0g/qEhc1tkcEi467f0buEImfL-soln-1p6GwCLcB/s1600/Session6map.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UUH1fBPmAaE/WKcqzr4Zw2I/AAAAAAAAB0g/qEhc1tkcEi467f0buEImfL-soln-1p6GwCLcB/s640/Session6map.png" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Otern county, and the major villages, towns, orc strongholds, and the fortress of Hortskink.</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<h3>
"Aisling gets +5 to reactions from <em>trees</em>."</h3>
The session started in early April, game time. Finbar Gullvan, the Old Man of the Resistance, got regular intelligence drops from Resistance cells in Otern, an orc controlled county to the north. His contact Kyell had missed the last two meetings. Finbar wanted the PCs to sneak into Otern and find either Kyell or someone who knew him and figure out what was going on.<br />
<br />
The PCs hurried up to the first large village. Correctly figuring that Kyell had probably been captured by orcs, they started searching for him as soon as they got into town, even though it was late in the day. They also sacrificed stealth for an easier time of finding Kyell, which somewhat surprised me because they weren't particularly good at stealth. As such, a lot of Luck was used and Destiny points spent to avoid being exposed to the orcs. They managed to determine that though the local villagers knew of Kyell, they didn't know him well and only knew that he came from someplace to the north and maybe had a Resistance contact named Kara. As most of Otern was north of them, and Kara was a common name, this wasn't much to go on.<br />
<br />
The next day they moved to up the road to the village of Lelund and did another conspicuous search. Luck was with them, in a way - a critical success on the search roll found Kara, the leader of the Otern Resistance. They also managed to blow the Stealth roll.<br />
<br />
Now at this point I misread my notes - as I usually do when I end running stuff on the fly like this. Kara was supposed to be hiding in Lelund, but I placed her in the open as a bartender. No huge harm done, but Kara in hiding made more sense. At any rate, Kara sent the PCs to the nearby farm village of Aliaberg to talk with Kyell's wife.<br />
<br />
On the way to Aliaberg, they ran across a detachment of orcs taking a break during a road march. The PCs were traveling cross country in a hurry. In the towns, Attivi had been using a magic spell to disguise Michael, but it was too fatiguing to keep up while hiking so the orcs got a good look at Michael's unusual height, slender build, and strange orange eyes. The PCs managed to break contact before the orcs could get up and chase them, but now the orcs knew of at least one Squallite moving around Otern - in short, the orcs were alerted to the PCs' presence.<br />
<br />
When they arrived in Aliaberg, I started making reaction rolls for the peasants. Aisling is a nymph, and has charisma +5, universal transcendent beauty, and a lovely cultured voice, netting her +12 in reaction bonuses from most intelligent things, and as Kevin pointed out, substantial bonuses even against trees. I rolled a natural 18 for a total of 30, giving her a supernaturally excellent reaction, to the point where people were so eager to be helpful that it was something of a problem.<br />
<br />
Kyell's wife confirmed that he'd been captured by orcs, and sent the PCs to a witness of the event, Yonus. Yonus proceeded to lie to Aisling, claiming that he was in the Resistance and had tracked the orcs after they took Kyell. Unfortunately for him, Nesta, Attivi, and Aisling are all good at detecting lies, and all of them realized he was lying. They immediately assumed he was a collaborator, grabbed him, and threatened to start hurting him. He confessed to his lies, and the PCs decided he wasn't a collaborator, just a braggart trying to get in good with the supernaturally pretty woman. They got some more information, and decided that the orcs had taken Kyell to their fortress of Hortskink. The PCs headed north, making plans to climb the walls and rescue Kyell.<br />
<br />
<h3>
"Hortskink is a fortress... we need a new plan."</h3>
I pulled up the map of Hortskink castle that I'd prepared for this eventuality. With a 15-20' wide moat, 40' tall walls, multiple towers, and a single gate, Hortskink was a serious castle. It was meant to hold over a thousand orcs at a time, though the current garrison was only a hundred or so. The PCs immediately decided that a raid wasn't going to work at all, and they'd have to get sneaky.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MXjHAzIQSkw/WKcrqYQ9nUI/AAAAAAAAB0s/3PNV3fU2694YF7093nlOodaN2AcT3Ax4wCLcB/s1600/Session6hortskink.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="307" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MXjHAzIQSkw/WKcrqYQ9nUI/AAAAAAAAB0s/3PNV3fU2694YF7093nlOodaN2AcT3Ax4wCLcB/s320/Session6hortskink.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hortskink castle</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
They knew from Kara that the messengers from the south had arrived at Hortskink, and the orcs knew about the rebellion in Engenstut county and were bringing in supplies and starting to train more extensively to bring their force up to full strength and ability. That also meant that peasants were bringing in supply wagons into at least the lower bailey.<br />
<br />
The PCs crafted a plan: Aisling would convince some peasants to loan her their wagon, and then Attivi and Nesta would hide everyone's weapons in it. Attivi would use magic to disguise Michael as donkey, and Nesta would drive the wagon into the castle while Nayla led Michael. Once inside, Nayla, Nesta, Michael, and Attivi would hide, while Aisling pretended to be a collaborator. She'd gain access to the orc leadership and then magic would happen. I was dubious about some of the details, but it was a plan, and they'd come up with it on their own with minimal prompting from me, so I didn't try to damp down their enthusiasms.<br />
<br />
Aisling easily charmed the peasants, everyone else hid their gear, and they moved into the castle. Inside the gate, Aisling flashed some coin to establish her status as a collaborator and said she had some information. The orc knight supervising the unloading of supplies was impressed by her story and took her to Captain Grunak, flirting with her on the way. Meanwhile, everyone else noticed that the doors to the south barracks were padlocked and a baby was crying intermittently from inside.<br />
<br />
I split up the action at this point. Everyone but Nesta went into the storehouse, waited until the kobold workers weren't around, and then hid. Except for Michael, who was disguised as a donkey and couldn't wander off as easily. This actually caused some confusion, because now the kobolds were looking for the humans who owned the donkey, but those same humans had gone into hiding. Things didn't get any better when Attivi disguised himself as an orc and scared the kobolds.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-aLhxJ21atWI/WKcqzjfxoiI/AAAAAAAAB0k/joWbE0k1_GoO1P2_GwAQtC3captUPZF_QCLcB/s1600/charmingquote.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-aLhxJ21atWI/WKcqzjfxoiI/AAAAAAAAB0k/joWbE0k1_GoO1P2_GwAQtC3captUPZF_QCLcB/s320/charmingquote.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Meanwhile, Aisling went and talked to Captain Grunak. He was inclined to be suspicious, but a little luck and a large dose of supernatural charm and beauty got past his defenses. He acknowledged that the orcs were looking for a Squallite among a party of a half dozen humans, but Aisling reported that Trahaern and Hloomawl were leading a substantial army up the road from Dons. This didn't work as well as she'd hoped, mainly because the orc military intelligence was terrible and the only resistance leader they'd identified at this point was Skyler. Regardless, Aisling managed to con him into believing that a weak human army was approaching, so he sent out orders to put most of Hortskink's garrison on a march to deal with them.<br />
<br />
Aisling used more charm to convince the orcs to let her stay while they prepared, but they firmly put her and her donkey outside the castle when they left. Meanwhile, the other PCs stayed hidden in the storehouse until dark. Attivi desperately held onto Michael's disguise spell for several hours before passing out.<br />
<br />
As an aside, the orcs were constantly making Perception and IQ rolls to see through the PCs' thin disguises and improbable plans. Sadly, the orcs aren't very smart, and luck was consistently against them, so they failed every time and never quite realized the PCs had disappeared or found their weapons when they searched the weapons or whatever else might have helped.<br />
<br />
<h3>
"I think it's time for the 'Chewie, put these cuffs on' stage of the plan."</h3>
After dusk, Aisling grabbed Michael, now back in his natural Squallite form, and took him back to the castle. After a bit of shouting, she woke up one of the orcs that was supposed to be on watch, charmed him with her supernatural charisma and beauty, and convinced him to open up the gates and take Michael prisoner. The orcs did that, and then Aisling convinced them that since the roads were dangerous - after all, there were Squallites out there - she should be allowed to sleep in the mostly empty stables. Michael was thrown into the barracks with the other prisoners.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-iyeNgZhhBZM/WKc3ehkWVhI/AAAAAAAAB1A/I1Yv1YW3W7MnIqXRlTRggfB_frz9RSsfQCLcB/s1600/ds1_hallway01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-iyeNgZhhBZM/WKc3ehkWVhI/AAAAAAAAB1A/I1Yv1YW3W7MnIqXRlTRggfB_frz9RSsfQCLcB/s320/ds1_hallway01.jpg" width="305" /></a></div>
<br />
Michael doesn't have Aisling's supernatural charisma, so his fellow prisoners weren't particularly impressed by him. He told them that he was with the Resistance and that his friends would rescue them soon, but they didn't really believe him. On the plus side, Michael finally did make contact with Kyell, but the Resistance messenger had been tortured by the orcs and wasn't really able to contribute.<br />
<br />
Nayla and Nesta sneaked out of the storehouse, grabbed their weapons from the cart, and started making plans for violence. Nayla waited for orcs to shoot, while Nesta climbed up the walls and eventually sneaked up onto the southeast tower and rushed the orc on watch there. Violence ensued, drawing the attention of the orcs, and then Nayla began sniping at them. Between Heroic Archer, a balanced composite bow, Night Vision 5, and the Guided Weapon imbuement, she didn't have any particular problem making headshots at 70+ yards against moving orcs partially hidden by the castle ramparts, even in the dark. She dropped two out right, and wounded a third before the remainder managed to flee into the towers.<br />
<br />
<h3>
"Man, orcs are jerks!"</h3>
Aisling had improvised a set of lock picks out of the files and whatnot in the saddlery room at the stables, and confidently set off to free Michael and the other prisoners. She's smart, and has the Cat Burglar talent, so what could go wrong? Apparently Kevin forgot to buy the actual lockpick skill, so she was working off a poor default. Still, a lucky critical success got the doors open, and Aisling slipped inside.<br />
<br />
These prisoners were scheduled to be executed in a few days, as a grand show of orc might and determination, but Aisling was going to rally them, lead them to the nearby smithy and arm them, and then have them defeat the orcs. Except these supposed "Resistance leaders" were a collection of elderly men and women, three children, and a baby. The only people of fighting age were Kyell, who'd been worked over extensively, and the baby's mother. The PCs were dismayed and disgusted at the laziness and cruelty of the orcs - there were several shouts of "man, orcs are jerks," which is one of the game's themes. Nayla showed up with Michael's bow and then headed north to hold the gate between the two courtyards.<br />
<br />
Michael stepped into the courtyard and spotted the orc lieutenant in charge of the fortress heading for the east tower. He went for a headshot, but the orc had his helmet on and the steel plate protected him.<br />
<br />
At this point, it was really late and I ended the game.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Evaluation of Play</h3>
This was a fun session. I messed up a couple of things, but I mostly managed to keep things moving. The group voluntarily split up, and that made things a little confusing, but I think I handled it pretty well. One thing I tried to do, and mostly succeeded, was handle the least risky parts of the plan first. So the PCs in the storehouse had to decide what they were going to do without knowing how Aisling's part of the plan was going to work. I don't know if really upped the dramatic tension, but I think it helped a bit.<br />
<br />
The players were mostly focused this time. There was some confusion and hesitation at first when they were trying to find Kyell, but they were pretty decisive as soon as they meant Kara and had obvious leads to pursue. The plan for dealing with the fortress kept changing as they got new information, but reasonably so: first they wanted to do a combat raid, then they decided to sneak in, then they wanted to rally the prisoners but that clearly isn't going to work, so now they're talking about killing the remaining dozen or so orcs in the garrison and burning the place. I pointed out that I'd specifically described the fortress of being made of stone, with brick buildings with clay tile roofs to make it hard to burn, but they're sticking with that for now.<br />
<br />
Aisling's charisma and beauty really came into play in this session. It's actually been fairly important in other sessions when they've been recruiting their army, but it was much more obvious this time through. I'm pretty happy about that, as Kevin has played a nymph in one of my Dungeon Fantasy games before, and all those points in charisma and beauty didn't do much to affect the game. This time, they really mattered and mostly for the better.<br />
<br />
<h3>
What Next?</h3>
At this time, I'm not really sure what the PC's plan is for the next session. I think they're going to have a brief combat with the orcs in Hortskink, which could go either way: a half dozen orcs in full plate backed by a half dozen orcs with crossbows is no joke, especially since the PCs don't have much in the way of similarly high quality armor. Then I think they're going to evacuate the prisoners and disable as much of Hortskink as they can.<br />
<br />
One possibility that Kevin mentioned is <a href="http://noschoolgrognard.blogspot.com/2017/03/new-dawn-session-7-some-orcs-are-stupid.html" target="_blank">recruiting an army and trying to defend Hortskink.</a> Otern, unlike the PC's home county of Engenstut, doesn't have much of a Resistance tradition and any hurriedly raised militia troops would be pretty low quality. They would also only have a day or two to recruit before the orcs came back. They know there was a company of orcs stationed at Hortskink, and two or three more companies at other strongholds in the area. A massive fortress gives a big edge in Mass Combat terms, but quality infantry and bowmen backed by magic can counter a lot of that. It's a possibility, especially since Aisling is a pretty good commander, but it's a pretty risky play. Hopefully, the PCs will decide what to do early in the week and I'll be able to make plans.<br />
<br />
<br />Mark Langsdorfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00301984145275679568noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1287550692312955328.post-59592499316316946062017-02-13T12:09:00.002-08:002017-02-16T07:52:52.136-08:00Covert Social Engineering<b>Precis</b>: A review of the rules for finding a specific criminal, and coming up some rules for doing that while evading authority.<br />
<br />
The next session of <a href="http://noschoolgrognard.blogspot.com/search/label/New%20Dawn" target="_blank">New Dawn</a> will involve the PCs going into orc controlled territory and trying to find out what happened to the local Resistance movement. I need to go over the rules for that.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Finding Criminals...</h3>
Fortunately, GURPS has at least some mechanics in the <a href="http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/books/Basic/" target="_blank">core rules</a> for finding people, and <a href="http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/books/socialengineering/" target="_blank">Social Engineering</a> provides some more details. Finding a particular criminal is a straightforward roll against Streetwise, modified by the size of the search area (its harder to find a specific person in a big city) and the distinctiveness of the person sought. Each attempt takes a day. On a success, you either find the person, or if the person isn't in your search area, determine that. Failure wastes time but the search can be repeated at no penalty.<br />
<br />
<h3>
...While Hiding From the Authorities</h3>
New Dawn adds the complication that the PCs are effectively wanted criminals by the local law enforcement, and thus need to keep their heads down. The GURPS rules for hiding from the authority while doing stuff aren't as straightforward, but they can be teased out from the basic set and Action: Exploits. The skill to hide in a crowd is Shadowing (or Stealth, in my games, since I feel Shadowing is a skill tax and roll all its functions into Stealth) and the skill to to detect people doing bad stuff and to detect oncoming guards is Observation. The question is how do they all work together?<br />
<br />
I'm going to say that that any PC searching for an informant, and any PC aiding with a complementary skill, needs to make a Stealth roll to avoid being found by the orcs. Stealth rolls are modified by any Holdout penalty for the PC's armor and any Distinctive Features quirks or Forgettable Face perks. Also, any PC can act as a look-out, and provide a complementary bonus to Stealth with an Observation roll. They can also pursue their inquiries more aggressively or circumspectly, trading -2 penalties to Stealth for +1 bonuses to Streetwise or -2 penalties to Streetwise for +1 bonuses to Stealth.<br />
<br />
<h3>
In Summary</h3>
Each day, the PCs can search some of the villages and towns for a Resistance Contact. They choose how much area to search:<br />
<ul>
<li>A single farm village (100 people; +3)</li>
<li>A small market village and surrounding farm villages (800 people; +2)</li>
<li>A single small or large market village (less than 500 people; +2)</li>
<li>A large market village and surrounding villages (3000 people; +1)</li>
<li>The town of Flostrund (2500 people; +1) </li>
<li>The town and the surrounding villages (8000 people: 0)</li>
</ul>
Once per day spent searching, a single PC may roll Streetwise to attempt to contact the local Resistance in the search area. The following modifiers apply:<br />
<ul>
<li>Complementary bonuses for any other PC using an Influence skill</li>
<li>+1 per -2 penalty to the following Stealth roll</li>
<li>-2 per +1 bonus on the following Stealth roll</li>
<li>The search area modifier</li>
</ul>
On success, the PCs find a contact in the local Resistance, if there is one in the area, or determine that there isn't one. On failure, they don't find anyone but can try again. Critical failure means contacting a collaborator who betrays them to the orcs.<br />
<br />
Each PC involved in the Streetwise roll, either directly, providing a complementary bonus, or acting as a look-out, must also roll Stealth. The following modifiers apply<br />
<ul>
<li>Complementary bonuses from any PC acting as a lookout with an Observation check. Lookouts can aid in the Streetwise test, but are at -2 on both rolls because they have to split their attention</li>
<li>The bonus or penalty from the Streetwise roll as above</li>
<li>Any Holdout penalty from the PC's armor (a successful Holdout roll halves the penalty, round down) and for any large weapons</li>
<li>Any modifiers from the PC's Distinctive Features, Forgettable Face, or Size Modifiers or other physical traits</li>
<li>Half of the search area modifier, as a penalty</li>
<li>A -3 penalty if the orcs are on alert.</li>
</ul>
The first failure puts the orcs on alert; the second failure causes an orc patrol to investigate. Multiple failures on the same day only count as one failure.<br />
<br />
If the PCs succeed on a Streetwise check on the same day that a Stealth failure causes the orcs to investigate, the PCs make contact first if their Margin of Success is more than the absolute value of their Margin of Failure and otherwise they make contact after dealing with the orc patrol.<br />
<br />
<h3>
What's the Point</h3>
Hopefully, this will be at least a mildly interesting mini-game that will keep all the PCs somewhat involved. They need to decide where to search: smaller areas produce more definite results, but can produce a lot of negative results, which uses up time. Smaller areas are also riskier to search, especially since repeated searches increase the iterative chance of Stealth failure. They also need to decide who conducts the searches, who acts as look-outs, and who is left hiding away from the villages because that PC is too distinctive to be useful. They've already sent Hloomawl off with the army rather than try to have a 8' tall, 600 lb minotaur try to infiltrate orc territory, and they may have to make similar decisions with some of the other PCs.<br />
<br />
These rules are a fairly tailored to my game, but they're just an expansion of the existing rules from the Basic Set and Social Engineering. They could be repurposed for other games where the PCs need to find some one while evading the authorities.<br />
<br />Mark Langsdorfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00301984145275679568noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1287550692312955328.post-83919620002458638422017-02-10T13:58:00.001-08:002017-02-10T14:00:25.646-08:00New Dawn Session 5: A Trope Subverted<b>Precis</b>: The Resistance army rescues a smaller force, recruits more troops, does a little delving, and defeats the orcs to liberate Namdalside.<br />
<br />
I ran the fifth session of New Dawn, my GURPS Fantasy Mass Combat game last night. A lot was accomplished, in a session with a bit of role-playing, a little bit of delving, and a couple of big battles.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Cast of Characters</h3>
<a href="http://noschoolgrognard.blogspot.com/search/label/New%20Dawn" target="_blank">New Dawn</a>
is a troupe style game, with each player having two characters. One
team primarily does military stuff; the other team has been doing
delving and diplomacy. The players know that the non-military team will be making contact with the Resistance in orc occupied territory next session, so there was some rearrangement of teams here.<br />
<h4>
The War Leaders</h4>
<ul>
<li><a class="g-profile" href="https://plus.google.com/115373610030621027923" target="_blank">+Uhuk of the Guard</a>'s Hloomawl, a minotaur princeling and mighty warrior.</li>
<li><a class="g-profile" href="https://plus.google.com/116541461100903445865" target="_blank">+Eric Schmidt</a>'s Trahaern ab Owen, a human master strategist.</li>
<li><a class="g-profile" href="https://plus.google.com/100396225121044993077" target="_blank">+Eilmyn Davidson</a>'s Skyler Therris, a human reprobate, warrior, and general.</li>
<li><a class="g-profile" href="https://plus.google.com/115413841072686813753" target="_blank">+Kevin Smyth</a>'s Ariana Rees, a human blacksmith and minor saint.</li>
<li>Kiara Schmidt's Greex "Wrongway", a cowardly kobold spymaster. </li>
</ul>
As usual, Kevin wrote a <a href="http://newdawn.wikia.com/wiki/ND/Session_5" target="_blank">session report from the player's perspective</a>.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Taking Stock</h3>
The <a href="http://noschoolgrognard.blogspot.com/2017/02/new-dawn-session-4-on-misapplication-of.html" target="_blank">previous session</a> ended with the Resistance army conquering the orc stronghold of Swartun, and the displaced orcs fleeing to the west. The war leaders wanted to take a few days to reorganize, so I declared there had been a week of rain. That brought us through the beginning of April in game time, which was also tax time, and they had a lot of money to spend. They set aside their most experienced troops for training and conversion from short term levies to long term soldiers and recruited more troops. Kevin decided Aisling, being a faerie ambassador, would be more useful with the non-military team, and swapped in Ariana for this session so he could play Aisling next session.<br />
<br />
So the session started off a little slowly, with some paperwork, but things started rolling within fifteen minutes or so. The Resistance army began moving west on April 3rd, in game time, but the orcs had long fled and all of Engenstut, the starting territory, was effectively liberated. This was a big thing for the PCs, since they got a big chunk of CP for doing that.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Moving Out, Making Decisions</h3>
As they crossed into the next orc territoy, Namdalside, their scouts brought them a member of the local resistance. Suvven (not of Nein, though all the players made that joke repeatedly) was part of a Resistance group under General Vaipnesterk. The Namdalside Resistance had risen up and chased the understrength local garrison out of Fort Scrite, but a reinforced orc company was coming up from the south and would overrun the Fort in a day or so. The Resistance's wizard had a prophecy that help would come out of the west, since Vaipnesterk was refusing to retreat and planned to die at the walls if necessary. Suvven had been sent to make contact with that help, and he did, and would the PCs please come save them?<br />
<br />
Skyler was suspicious, thinking it was some kind of trap, but Greex and Hloomawl thought Suvven was being honest and Trahaern and Ariana immediately started arranging for a forced march. There was a bit of role-playing between Skyler and Arianna, as Skyler doesn't believe in magic and Arianna is a low key but actual priestess of a forgotten god. As an aside, this kind of minor prophecy is the sort of thing I really like in fantasy games. It's not much work, but it reminds people that magic is real and can influence events.<br />
<br />
The Resistance army made it to the next major village where they met Beyorn, a member of the northern Namdalside Resistance. He reported that multiple orc forces were converging on their fortress of Costvud in the north, but if the army hurried, it could reach Costvud first and assault while there were only 100 or so orcs there. This put the PCs in a dilemma, since their available forces could easily beat a company of orcs, even behind castle walls, but three or four hundred orcs in a castle would be a tough nut to crack. On the other hand, abandoning the Resistance at Fort Scrite to their fate wasn't a pleasant idea.<br />
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-dlAdxlO6eyA/WJ43EhJA-VI/AAAAAAAABz4/N6giCotiNUMDhS7suHccYKMYRb-KcBf-ACLcB/s1600/Orcs_army_attack-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="234" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-dlAdxlO6eyA/WJ43EhJA-VI/AAAAAAAABz4/N6giCotiNUMDhS7suHccYKMYRb-KcBf-ACLcB/s320/Orcs_army_attack-1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
In the end, they decided to go to Fort Scrite. They arrived there a few hours before dark, while the reinforced orc company was coming up from the south.<br />
<br />
<h3>
The Battle of Fort Scrite</h3>
The PCs first obstacle was dealing with General Vaipnesterk. They had already figured that he was a general in Skyler's mode, but without Skyler's touch of genius that makes all-out charges work. He was also touchy and arrogant, and didn't want to let the western Resistance forces into Fort Scrite if it meant he'd no longer be in charge of the battle. After some quick discussion, Trahaern agreed to let Vaipnesterk stay in command - though they were already plotting to disable him somehow.<br />
<br />
Things didn't get any better after they got inside. Vaipnesterk's plan of battle was an All-Out Defense of the walls, and it was already obvious that the orcs weren't going to attack until after dark, when their infravision would give them a substantial edge over the combined force. Arianna gave an inspiring speech and convinced several elements of the garrison to turn against Vaipnesterk, and the PCs took him out. I had warned them that an assault of on the Namdalside Resistance's leader would cause problems, but they figured those problems couldn't be as bad as having Vaipnesterk in charge.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-k6iq-8LyQh8/WJ41aNTHRsI/AAAAAAAABzo/4oShVbLtiR0g0dVbCV7isBujwhaLj9BHgCLcB/s1600/Session5a.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-k6iq-8LyQh8/WJ41aNTHRsI/AAAAAAAABzo/4oShVbLtiR0g0dVbCV7isBujwhaLj9BHgCLcB/s320/Session5a.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Trahearn outflanks the orcs for massive casualties while Skyler grinds them down.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Trahaern and Skyler took charge and led an immediate assault on the orcs outside the walls. Giving up the substantial advantage of the fortifications was a loss, especially since they were taking additional penalties in the upcoming strategy contest for integrating the Namdalside troops into their own forces, but it was considered much better than fighting the orcs in the dark. At any rate, the orcish right managed to rebuff Skyler's all-out assault with moderate losses on their side, but Trahaern's flanking attack into the orcish left's "give no ground" defense was enormously successful, causing 80% casualties in the first thirty minutes. The orcs desperately reinforced their left flank, which didn't substantially change the odds against Trahaern but did leave them with insufficient forces to resist Skyler's assault. As the sun set, Trahaern demolished the left flank (with 85% of the participating orcs killed) and Skyler's force ground up the right flank with few losses on his side. The remaining 40 or so orcs fled into the night, but most didn't make it very far.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Not All Rumors Pan Out</h3>
Since the PCs figured they'd lost the race for Costvud, they spent a couple more days in the vicinity of Fort Scrite, recruiting troops and reorganizing. Then they headed north. On the way, their scouts brought them another intriguing rumor. At this point, I also pointed out that their scouts were always bringing them intriguing rumors, but in the interest of play time, I wasn't dealing with the ones that didn't pan out in any way. At any rate, Yunnah claimed to be descended from the aristocrats who lived in Costvud before the Empire of Night. Family lore was that they had fled through an escape tunnel that led to some caves about 3/4 of a mile away from the castle. There were three problems with using these caves to bypass Costvud's defenses: they were in bear country, they were definitely haunted as Yunnuh's uncles had died exploring them, and there was some confused family lore about some kind of guardian.<br />
<br />
So we had a micro-dungeon delving experience. Trahaern confirmed they were in bear country and that they could expect bears waking up from hibernation and being hungry. The PCs still pressed in, and soon found a room with a trio of cave bears sleeping in it. Ariana also spotted something weird about the shadows in the room - they were moving independently of the lights, and thanks to the burnt books she'd recovered from the crypt at Camp Liberty, she thought they were some kind of shadow monster that would be hard to kill without weapons that they did not have. All this prompted a discussion about the merits of acquiring bearskin rugs versus getting killed by hostile shadow monsters with unknown capabilities, strengths, and weaknesses. In the end, they decided to sneak past them.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-aCaRZYiGnVs/WJ43g7S-J6I/AAAAAAAABz8/rz00O6nLJK83eTpIThLg4ErN_BnozjgegCLcB/s1600/cavebear.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-aCaRZYiGnVs/WJ43g7S-J6I/AAAAAAAABz8/rz00O6nLJK83eTpIThLg4ErN_BnozjgegCLcB/s1600/cavebear.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
They eventually found the escape tunnel - a narrow, 4' wide, 5' tall passage cut through the rock - but it led to a cave-in with a bunch of skeletons and pieces of moldy armor scattered around. There was also a 15' tall statue bizarrely built into the wall, and I don't think any of the players were surprised when it's eyes glowed red and it's one free arm started reaching for a boulder. Hloomawl yanked Yunnah forward, hoping that the Guardian was friendly, and Trahaern and Arianna started trying to talk to it.<br />
<br />
As it turned out, the Guardian was missing most of its jaw and was pretty hard to understand. Kevin pointed out that it was weird that a magic statue wouldn't be able to talk just because it's jaw was missing, given that it wasn't like it had flexible lips or lungs or anything, but I said that magic works in weird ways. Arianna quickly called upon the forge god and carved something of a replacement, and while it didn't make the Guardian completely understandable, it was at least intelligible with effort now.<br />
<br />
The Guardian wanted to fight the orcs, but it couldn't free itself from the collapsed ceiling. And even if it could, the passage was way too small for it to pass through. The PCs would need to come back with miners and shoring beams and whatnot, which they promised to do, but it turned out this rumor was something of a dead end in the short term.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Assault the Castle? Not yet</h3>
The PCs evaluated the enemy troop strength at Costvud. It looked like the orcs had rough parity with the Resistance forces, before counting the massive +9 Defense Bonus the castle would give the orcs. It might be possible to take the place, but it would hard. They briefly discussed surrounding the place and starving the orcs out, but realized the orcs would sally forth at night when their infravision gave them a substantial edge.<br />
<br />
In the end, the Resistance fell back to Fort Scrite, which had a substantial village and a large town nearby, and started recruiting like crazy.<br />
<h3>
<br />The Battle of Trevya</h3>
One of the orcs more impetuous company commanders, the imfamous Captain Erigash, decided that since the humans had retreated, that meant they were weak. He took about half the Costvud garrison and headed south to assault the humans.<br />
<br />
Greex once again had better intelligence and recon forces, and orcs were ambushed on the road. This was a short, sharp battle: all the orcs might have had rough parity with the Resistance forces, but half the orcs were outmatched two to one in total troop strength and each individual special class, and being ambushed never helps. Within an hour, a couple of goblin wolf-riders and Captain Erigash and his bodyguards were fleeing north.<br />
<br />
<h3>
The Battle of Costvud</h3>
The Resistance reorganized and headed back up to Costvud. This was the final battle of the night, and was another overwhelming victory for the PCs. With their reinforcements, they had a huge edge in numbers (something like 2000 to 130 or so). Colonel Gulm handled Trahaern a little roughly and actually beat him in the first round, but Skyler's all-out assault against Captain Erigash carried the wall and inflicted a lot of casualties on the orcs. Once again, the orcs reinforced the losing flank, and once again, they managed to critically weaken their strong position in exchange for not materially improving their odds on the weak flank.<br />
<br />
Arianna convinced Trahaern to let Captain Erigash flee, figuring that he much more of a threat to the orcs than he was to the Resistance, and we closed up the game with a great victory.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-XzBNOrqGyv4/WJ41n0Roe9I/AAAAAAAABzs/X3d5yae673IJJNbE152PjquNKOpvjiVoACLcB/s1600/Session5d.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="297" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-XzBNOrqGyv4/WJ41n0Roe9I/AAAAAAAABzs/X3d5yae673IJJNbE152PjquNKOpvjiVoACLcB/s400/Session5d.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Resistance Movement in Blue, Orc Movement in Red.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<h3>
Evaluation of Play</h3>
This was a pretty good session, all told. There were plenty of opportunities for role-playing, and there was some tension in the decision to go straight to Costvud or save the allies at Fort Scrite. I had planned with having two battles, and stretching it to accommodate a third through the pacing a little off, but I think it worked okay anyway.<br />
<br />
I wouldn't have minded if the PCs had decided to attack the cave bears, even though it would probably have taken up the rest of the session, but I was also okay with the PCs sneaking past the bears. In a pure Dungeon Fantasy game, I would have probably forced the combat, or at least extracted more of a price for avoiding it. But this is a Fantasy Mass combat game, not a DF game, and I don't feel the same need to make every potential combat into a combat.<br />
<br />
I think the players were disappointed that they didn't find a hidden passage inside the garrison. It's such an expected trope that if the GM offers it as bait, the players expect the pay-off. It was interesting, from the GM's perspective, to subvert that trope. And it's not like the PCs could really complain about their time being wasted - getting a Giant unit will do a lot make future combats easier.<br />
<br />
One thing that may not have come through the write-up was that, although a lot was accomplished in just four hours of play, this was also a long session in game-time. A week passed with just a hand-wave, but there was still another twelve days of active campaigning that consumed half of April. I'm pretty happy with that, as it means the orcs are getting more time to prepare and get organized themselves. The Resistance forces are now overwhelmingly powerful against any lone orc company that they fight, so for this to stay interesting, the orcs are going to have to start banding together and getting reinforcements. Of course, the Resistance will start getting better troops, now that they can train and recruit openly and aren't just relying on hastily cobbled together formations of militia.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Technical Notes</h3>
Uhuk had some microphone troubles. Hloomawl also initially failed the Stealth roll to sneak past the cave bears right at the time the microphone cut out, and the PCs were almost forced into that combat because I couldn't hear Uhuk saying she wanted to use her Luck to reroll. We wasted a couple of minutes on that.<br />
<br />
I'm continuing to refine the Mass Combat army tracker spreadsheet. The latest improvement is that each subcommand (currently Skyler's force, Trahaern's force, the garrison force, and the training force) has its own page, and there is a separate page that lists all the combined forces. Each page keeps track of the troops assigned to its page, and the unassigned troops of the same type listed on the combined forces page. This makes it a lot easier to split forces up since you can see at a glance what is available, and you can also easily record casualties on a subcommand's page and then see which ones need to be reduced on the combined forces page. I still need to make some more improvements and play with it some more, but I hope to release it to the wider GURPS community sometime this spring.<br />
<br />
<h3>
What Next</h3>
Next week, we'll focus on the other characters and their attempt to make contact with the Resistance in Otern. I have some vague ideas about what should happen, but I need to work out all the details and get everything prepared. <br />
<br />Mark Langsdorfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00301984145275679568noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1287550692312955328.post-43602483882413171632017-02-07T09:12:00.002-08:002017-02-07T09:13:00.463-08:00Giants throwing boulders in GURPS<b>Precis</b>: I play with the math of the GURPS throwing rules for very strong combatants, and come up with a better solution using the slam rules.<br />
<br />
While doing some prep work for <a href="http://noschoolgrognard.blogspot.com/search/label/New%20Dawn" target="_blank">New Dawn</a>, I once again ran into the weirdness that are the GURPS throwing rules. This also came up in <a href="http://noschoolgrognard.blogspot.com/search/label/Mecha%20Against%20the%20Giants" target="_blank">Mecha Against the Giants</a>, but I don't remember doing much about it then.<br />
<br />
The basic issue is that the throwing damage rules are scaled for human sized fighters with non-cinematic strength, and the assumption is that if you're throwing something that doesn't weigh very much compared to the amount you can lift, it must not weigh very much at all. Which is maybe acceptable when you're dealing with an average guy throwing a one pound rock at someone a dozen yards away, but falls to pieces when you're dealing with a giant, stronger than an elephant, throwing 100 pound boulders. Or when you deal with that giant's big brother, who is four times as strong, but throws those same boulders three times as far for the same damage.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-kAuKMKRi348/VMEg9WCmZ_I/AAAAAAAAAhE/KCOFZhwm-3gL4_ibBG2rDChGZdHcmHBygCPcB/s1600/Massive%2BGiant%2BA.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-kAuKMKRi348/VMEg9WCmZ_I/AAAAAAAAAhE/KCOFZhwm-3gL4_ibBG2rDChGZdHcmHBygCPcB/s1600/Massive%2BGiant%2BA.png" /></a></div>
<br />
I like charts and tables, so here's a table going into more detail on how far, and for how much damage, various ST levels can throw things under the standard GURPS rules<br />
<br />
<br />
<table border="1" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="1">
<tbody>
<tr><td><u><b>ST</b></u></td><td style="text-align: center;"><u><b>50 lb</b></u></td><td style="text-align: center;"><u><b>100 lb</b></u></td><td style="text-align: center;"><u><b>200 lb</b></u></td><td style="text-align: center;"><u><b>400 lb</b></u></td><td style="text-align: center;"><u><b>800 lb</b></u></td></tr>
<tr><td>60</td><td style="text-align: center;">3d @ 210 yds</td><td style="text-align: center;">5d @ 150 yds</td><td style="text-align: center;">7d @ 70 yds</td><td style="text-align: center;">9d @ 50 yds</td><td style="text-align: center;">7d @ 35 yds</td></tr>
<tr><td>90</td><td style="text-align: center;">4d+2 @ 315 yds</td><td style="text-align: center;">4d+2 @ 315 yds</td><td style="text-align: center;">4d+2 @ 225 yds</td><td style="text-align: center;">7d+1 @ 135 yds</td><td style="text-align: center;">10d @ 90 yds</td></tr>
<tr><td>120</td><td style="text-align: center;">6d-3 @ 420 yds</td><td style="text-align: center;">6d-3 @ 420 yds</td><td style="text-align: center;">6d-3 @ 420 yds</td><td style="text-align: center;">9d+2 @ 300 yds</td><td style="text-align: center;">13d @ 145 yds</td></tr>
<tr><td>150</td><td style="text-align: center;">7d-1 @ 525 yds</td><td style="text-align: center;">7d-1 @ 525 yds</td><td style="text-align: center;">7d-1 @ 525 yds</td><td style="text-align: center;">7d-1 <complete id="goog_1140174214">@</complete> 525 yds</td><td style="text-align: center;">11d+3 @ 300 yds</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
This table is nicely demonstrative. A ST 120 giant is four times as strong as a ST 60 giant, but the ST 120 giant throws 100 lb and 200 lbs for the same or less damage at the ST 60 giant, even though he can throw them three or six times as far.<br />
<br />
The damage amounts are also unsatisfying. A ST 120 giant throws a 50 lb rock farther than a ballista can, but for half the damage, and the same with a 200 lb rock. <br />
<br />
<h3>
Slam Damage to the Rescue?</h3>
I was talking about this on the GURPS Discord chat channel last night, and mused that these boulders would do a lot more damage if they slammed into people. A 50 lb boulder has 29 HP, and does 1d of damage in a slam for every 3 yards per second of velocity. Presumably a giant who can throw a rock 210 yards can throw it faster than 10 yards per second.<br />
<br />
Actually, if you do the math from the physics, an object thrown in a perfect 45 degree arc for maximum distance travels at the square root of 10 times the distance, in yards per second. If you calculate the slam damage for rocks moving at that speed, you get a damage table that looks like this:<br />
<br />
<table border="1" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="1">
<tbody>
<tr><td><u><b>ST</b></u></td><td style="text-align: center;"><u><b>50 lb</b></u></td><td style="text-align: center;"><u><b>100 lb</b></u></td><td style="text-align: center;"><u><b>200 lb</b></u></td><td style="text-align: center;"><u><b>400 lb</b></u></td><td style="text-align: center;"><u><b>800 lb</b></u></td></tr>
<tr><td>60</td><td style="text-align: center;">13d+1 @<br />
210 yds</td><td style="text-align: center;">14d+1 @ 150 yds</td><td style="text-align: center;">12d+2 @ 70 yds</td><td style="text-align: center;">12d+3 @ 50 yds</td><td style="text-align: center;">14d @ 35 yds</td></tr>
<tr><td>90</td><td style="text-align: center;">16d+1 @<br />
315 yds</td><td style="text-align: center;">20d+2 @ 315 yds</td><td style="text-align: center;">22d+1 @ 225 yds</td><td style="text-align: center;">22d+2 @ 135 yds</td><td style="text-align: center;">22d+1 @ 90 yds</td></tr>
<tr><td>120</td><td style="text-align: center;">18d+2 @<br />
420 yds</td><td style="text-align: center;">23d+3 @ 420 yds</td><td style="text-align: center;">30d-1 @ 420 yds</td><td style="text-align: center;">32d+1 @ 300 yds</td><td style="text-align: center;">28d @ 145 yds</td></tr>
<tr><td>150</td><td style="text-align: center;">21d @ 525 yds</td><td style="text-align: center;">26d+2 @ 525 yds</td><td style="text-align: center;">34d @ 525 yds</td><td style="text-align: center;">42d+2 <complete id="goog_1140174214">@</complete> 525 yds</td><td style="text-align: center;">40d+2 @ 300 yds</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
To me, this is a much more satisfying table. Stronger giants throw big rocks for farther, and much harder, than weaker giants. The optimum rock for damage varies with the strength of the giant, in somewhat reasonable ways.<br />
<br />
The only problem is that calculating this damage in play requires performing an ugly square root. That's not necessarily a huge issue for me, because I can write a spreadsheet to do the math, but here's a simple table that pre-calculates it:<br />
<br />
<table border="1" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="1">
<tbody>
<tr><td>Max Range</td><td>Speed</td></tr>
<tr><td>10 yds or less</td><td>10</td></tr>
<tr><td>30 yds or less</td><td>15</td></tr>
<tr><td>100 yds or less</td><td>30</td></tr>
<tr><td>300 yds or less</td><td>50</td></tr>
<tr><td>1000 yds or less</td><td>100</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Just for grins, let's compare this table with it's breakpoints to the table above:<br />
<br />
<table border="1" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="1">
<tbody>
<tr><td><u><b>ST</b></u></td><td style="text-align: center;"><u><b>50 lb</b></u></td><td style="text-align: center;"><u><b>100 lb</b></u></td><td style="text-align: center;"><u><b>200 lb</b></u></td><td style="text-align: center;"><u><b>400 lb</b></u></td><td style="text-align: center;"><u><b>800 lb</b></u></td></tr>
<tr><td>60</td><td style="text-align: center;">14d+2 @<br />
210 yds</td><td style="text-align: center;">18d+2 @ 150 yds</td><td style="text-align: center;">14d+1 @ 70 yds</td><td style="text-align: center;">17d+3 @ 50 yds</td><td style="text-align: center;">22d+1 @ 35 yds</td></tr>
<tr><td>90</td><td style="text-align: center;">29d @<br />
315 yds</td><td style="text-align: center;">37d @ 315 yds</td><td style="text-align: center;">23d+2 @ 225 yds</td><td style="text-align: center;">29d+2 @ 135 yds</td><td style="text-align: center;">22d+1 @ 90 yds</td></tr>
<tr><td>120</td><td style="text-align: center;">29 @<br />
420 yds</td><td style="text-align: center;">37d @ 420 yds</td><td style="text-align: center;">47d @ 420 yds</td><td style="text-align: center;">29d+2 @ 300 yds</td><td style="text-align: center;">37d @ 145 yds</td></tr>
<tr><td>150</td><td style="text-align: center;">29d @ 525 yds</td><td style="text-align: center;">37d @ 525 yds</td><td style="text-align: center;">47d @ 525 yds</td><td style="text-align: center;">59d <complete id="goog_1140174214">@</complete> 525 yds</td><td style="text-align: center;">37d @ 300 yds</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Generally, all the damage got a bump, of around 25 to 50%. That's not great, but some things are going to have to be sacrificed for speed of play.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Calculating it In Play</h3>
So now I want to see how this works in play, both using the standard rules and these houserules.<br />
<br />
The situation is a bunch of delvers are fighting a 18' tall giant with ST 75. He grabs a 270 lb boulder - a rock about 16" in diameter - and then throws it at a delver.<br />
<br />
<h4>
Standard Rules</h4>
The giant has BL (75 * 75 / 5) or 1125. 270 lbs / 1125 is just under 0.25, so his throw distance multiplier is 1.2 for 90 yards of range and thrust damage at -1 per die. If the giant chucks the boulder and hits, the target can expect to take 8d+2 -8 or 8d-6 damage, averaging about 22 points.<br />
<br />
<h4>
House Rules</h4>
The giant can throw the boulder 90 yards, so the boulder's speed is 30 yards per second. The boulder has about 50 HP (Campaigns p 558). 50*30 / 100 is 25d, for an average of 87 cr damage on a hit. That delver had better dodge!<br />
<br />
<h3>
Evaluation</h3>
Strong giants, or strong superheroes, throwing big rocks can do a lot of damage under these rules, perhaps too much. I don't mind large objects moving fast (30 yards per second is 60 miles per hour) doing a fair bit of damage, but people aren't routinely killed by being hit by a motorcycle at 60 miles per hour, though it's certainly a concern.<br />
<br />
I'm not sure what the correct answer is. I like these rules better than I like the standard GURPS rules, but the damage is probably too high. I think that's an artifact of the slam damage rules, especially the extra HP for unliving and homogeonous objects compared to people of the same weight. Reducing the damage by half for unliving objects and to a quarter for homogeneous objects would do a lot to bring things under control while still smoothing out breakpoints. It'd also get rid of a minor weakness, where throwing a living creature (like a knight) does much less damage than throwing a boulder for the same weight.<br />
<br />
Actually, what I really recommend is doubling damage for living targets and halving damage for homogeneous objects. If you do that, the ST 75 giant throwing a 270 lb rock does 12d+2 cr, which is a lot, while if he throws a ST 16 knight (weighing 270 lbs with gear), he does 2*16*30/100, or 9d+2, which is still a lot but fairly reasonable.<br />
<br />
I think, in play, these rules wouldn't be any worse than the standard GURPS rules and they feel slightly more reasonable to me.<br />
<br />
<br />Mark Langsdorfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00301984145275679568noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1287550692312955328.post-87580411783090594272017-02-04T08:05:00.000-08:002017-02-04T13:37:24.749-08:00Some More Experiences With Technical Grappling<b>Precis</b>: I evaluate my group's experience with Technical Grappling, and conclude that the minor permanent increase in complexity sometimes pays off but its very borderline.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://gamingballistic.com/" target="_blank">Doug Cole</a> noted that <a href="http://dungeonfantastic.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Peter Dell'Orto</a> had been using <a href="http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/books/MartialArts/technicalgrappling/" target="_blank">Technical Grappling</a> in Peter's <a href="http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/books/dungeonfantasy/" target="_blank">Dungeon Fantasy</a> game, and Peter wrote a <a href="http://dungeonfantastic.blogspot.com/2017/02/some-experiences-of-technical-grappling.html" target="_blank">post about his group's experience with it</a>.<br />
<br />
My online group has also been using Technical Grappling, for at least two years, in a variety of games: <a class="g-profile" href="https://plus.google.com/115373610030621027923" target="_blank">+Uhuk of the Guard</a>'s Dungeon Fantasy game, my <a href="http://noschoolgrognard.blogspot.com/search/label/Mecha%20Against%20the%20Giants" target="_blank">Mecha Against the Giants</a>, my <a href="http://noschoolgrognard.blogspot.com/search/label/Castle%20of%20Horrors" target="_blank">Castle of Horrors</a>, and now in my <a href="http://noschoolgrognard.blogspot.com/search/label/New%20Dawn" target="_blank">New Dawn</a> game. Along the way, I've had to ask questions <a href="http://noschoolgrognard.blogspot.com/2015/01/giant-robot-wrestling.html" target="_blank">once</a> or <a href="http://noschoolgrognard.blogspot.com/2015/10/technical-grappling-how-does-disarm-work.html" target="_blank">twice</a> to get clarification on how things work in Technical Grappling. I wouldn't say I have a great grasp of Technical Grappling, but I've certainly used it.<br />
<br />
Peter gives a great overview of the relative complexity of Technical Grappling versus the standard GURPS system, and there's nothing in there that I really disagree with. Technical Grappling is a little more book keeping, but not much more, and is sometimes a little more confusing than the standard rules, but it does let you do more.<br />
<br />
The difficult question is whether Technical Grappling's complexity is worth it? To me, it's very much a borderline answer. In my experience, there's basically two instances when grappling occurs:<br />
<br />
<ol>
<li>A specialized grappler initiates grappling, with the intent of turning the victim into a pretzel or wearing them as a hat or whatever</li>
<li>Someone initiates a grapple as the least bad option out of handle of bad options, like when someone is disarmed and goes for a grapple because it at least keeps them in a combat</li>
</ol>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-nb4nOgCx4TE/Vhjw1UHcAGI/AAAAAAAAArE/v3ATvz4EoMAVw6wX1Q8PNDeq1bO7MrsFgCPcB/s1600/disarm.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="75" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-nb4nOgCx4TE/Vhjw1UHcAGI/AAAAAAAAArE/v3ATvz4EoMAVw6wX1Q8PNDeq1bO7MrsFgCPcB/s320/disarm.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
In both cases, the target of the grapple has very little incentive to counter-grapple. In the first case, the target is almost certainly worse at grappling than the grappler is, and struggling with the grapple is probably a worse plan than counter-attacking with a melee weapon or going into an all-out defense and hoping allies can get rid of the grappler. In the second case, whatever the target had been doing was apparently working just fine, and there's little reason to switch tactics just because the guy who was getting the worse of the exchange tried to change the game.<br />
<br />
This can work for the PCs, of course. <a class="g-profile" href="https://plus.google.com/115413841072686813753" target="_blank">+Kevin Smyth</a> had a barbarian beetle man wrestler in Uhuk's Chaos Scar game, and he used his ridiculous lifting ST, multiple arms, and mastery of wrestling to turn kobolds inside out and once pinned a dragon and broke its back while said dragon flailed away uselessly. But there was very little that Technical Grappling actually enabled; just about everything that Kevin's character did could have been done in a slightly more binary fashion with just the core rules.<br />
<br />
My conclusion would be that Technical Grappling slightly increases the complexity and book keeping of grappling in play in 100% of the time when someone grapples, and that complexity pays off with an interesting new result in maybe 10% of the time when someone grapples. The complexity and book keeping load is just low enough that its worth it for those 10% occasions, but I could see how a different group would find the permanent complexity not worth the infrequent pay-off.Mark Langsdorfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00301984145275679568noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1287550692312955328.post-23576824532305107382017-02-03T12:43:00.002-08:002017-02-17T09:57:22.372-08:00New Dawn Session 4: On the Misapplication of Forces<b>Precis</b>: The Resistance Leaders at Camp Liberty fight a horrible monster, while the Resistance army conquers the orc stronghold of Swartun but lets the orc field army get away.<br />
<br />
Last night was the fourth session of my GURPS Mass Combat Fantasy game New Dawn. It was a good session, with a fair bit of accomplishment and some humor and surprises.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Cast of Characters</h3>
<a href="http://noschoolgrognard.blogspot.com/search/label/New%20Dawn" target="_blank">New Dawn</a> is a troupe style game, with each player having two characters. One team primarily does military stuff; the other team has been doing delving and diplomacy.<br />
<h4>
The Delvers</h4>
<ul>
<li><a class="g-profile" href="https://plus.google.com/115373610030621027923" target="_blank">+Uhuk of the Guard</a>'s <a href="http://newdawn.wikia.com/wiki/ND/Hloomawl" target="_blank">Hloomawl</a>, a minotaur princeling and mighty warrior.</li>
<li><a class="g-profile" href="https://plus.google.com/116541461100903445865" target="_blank">+Eric Schmidt</a>'s <a href="http://newdawn.wikia.com/wiki/ND/Nesta_Bowen" target="_blank">Nesta</a> Bowen, a human master spy with a grudge against the orcs.</li>
<li><a class="g-profile" href="https://plus.google.com/100396225121044993077" target="_blank">+Eilmyn Davidson</a>'s <a href="http://newdawn.wikia.com/wiki/ND/Michael_Jones" target="_blank">Michael</a> Jones, a Squallite archer.</li>
<li><a class="g-profile" href="https://plus.google.com/115413841072686813753" target="_blank">+Kevin Smyth</a>'s <a href="http://newdawn.wikia.com/wiki/ND/Ariana_Rees" target="_blank">Ariana</a> Rees, a human blacksmith and minor saint.</li>
<li>Kiara Schmidt's <a href="http://newdawn.wikia.com/wiki/ND/Nayla" target="_blank">Nayla</a>, a supernaturally skilled archer.</li>
<li><i><a href="http://newdawn.wikia.com/wiki/ND/Finbar_Gullvan" target="_blank">Finbar</a> Gullvan</i>, the old man of the Resistance </li>
</ul>
<h4>
The War Leaders</h4>
<ul>
<li><a class="g-profile" href="https://plus.google.com/115373610030621027923" target="_blank">+Uhuk of the Guard</a>'s <a href="http://newdawn.wikia.com/wiki/ND/Attivi_Valar" target="_blank">Attivi</a> Valar, a human sorcerer specializing in mind control. </li>
<li><a class="g-profile" href="https://plus.google.com/116541461100903445865" target="_blank">+Eric Schmidt</a>'s <a href="http://newdawn.wikia.com/wiki/ND/Trahaern_ab_Owen" target="_blank">Trahaern</a> ab Owen, a human master strategist.</li>
<li><a class="g-profile" href="https://plus.google.com/100396225121044993077" target="_blank">+Eilmyn Davidson</a>'s <a href="http://newdawn.wikia.com/wiki/ND/Skyler_Therris" target="_blank">Skyler</a> Therris, a human reprobate, warrior, and general.</li>
<li><a class="g-profile" href="https://plus.google.com/115413841072686813753" target="_blank">+Kevin Smyth</a>'s <a href="http://newdawn.wikia.com/wiki/ND/Aisling_Mhic_Muiris" target="_blank">Aisling</a> Mhic Muiris, a Nymph ambassador from the Fae court.</li>
<li>Kiara Schmidt's <a href="http://newdawn.wikia.com/wiki/ND/Greex" target="_blank">Greex</a> "Wrongway", a cowardly kobold spymaster. </li>
</ul>
Uhuk had to drop out before we switched focus to the War Leaders, so her character wasn't present.<br />
<br />
<br />
<h3>
We Don't Want To Fight That!</h3>
The session started <a href="http://noschoolgrognard.blogspot.com/2017/01/new-dawn-session-3-wight-men-cant-jump.html" target="_blank">where the last one ended</a>: the Delvers were in the crypt of a ruined temple at Camp Liberty. They had killed a bunch of ghouls, but the exit to the room had been blockaded. Presumably the ghouls had put up the blockade, since it was clumsily assembled from charred wood. Ariana and Hloomawl had cleared, and smelled something awful in the next room.<br />
<br />
The group assembled in a pretty lousy formation in front of the door. I'd told them to discuss their plans and then assemble, but they just assembled, so the archers were at the very back but otherwise exposed and Ariana and Hloomawl were up front. Hloomawl checked to see if the door was locked, and since it wasn't, opened it.<br />
<br />
In the next room was a terrifying abomination of bodies, welded together by some unholy magic. The main mass was a 15' across pile of bones and gore, but there were two "arms" made of torsos, each about 12' long, and four skulls raising above the pile on spinal columns. Each skull was covered in rotting eyes. The eyes had been waiting for the door to open, and each one looked at a PC. The PCs had to make HT-5 rolls or take 1d of irresistible toxic damage. Since most of the PCs had a HT of 11, they took damage. Everyone also had to make Fright checks at a penalty, and some people had to spend Destiny to succeed.<br />
<br />
At this point, there was quite a bit of chatter. Ariana wanted to retreat and come back with alchemical fire and burn the thing out, but everyone else had spotted charred books in the room and weren't sure that employing fire was a great idea. On the other hand, everyone agreed that fighting that monster wasn't a great plan, so Ariana closed the door.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-1b5_jGtmVuQ/VjJYUpMdhDI/AAAAAAAAAus/FLnKa1fRN44GIJQyqXvAqfJTYHLV9gFtQCPcB/s1600/nope.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="170" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-1b5_jGtmVuQ/VjJYUpMdhDI/AAAAAAAAAus/FLnKa1fRN44GIJQyqXvAqfJTYHLV9gFtQCPcB/s320/nope.gif" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
The monster immediately began slamming into the door, trying to open it. Fortunately, Hloomawl and Ariana were just strong enough to brace the doors while Michael, Nayla, and Nesta frantically piled up the debris to make the blockade again. Eventually the doors were blocked again and everyone backed off, applied first aid, and contemplated what to do next.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Fighting the Abomination Try 2</h3>
The delvers wanted those books, since they might contain hints about how magic worked. They rigged the blockade so that Hloomawl and Ariana could dismantle it using ropes from behind cover, and Nesta got out an alchemical fire grenade to use when the monster made it into the room. Nayla retreated back into the crypts to get herself some cover, and Michael took a position to the side of the main door, but in Nayla's line of fire and in clear sight of the monster if it came into the room. I asked Eilmyn about that twice, but she was happy with the position.<br />
<br />
Ariana and Hloomawl pulled the blockade away, the monster beat down the doors, and the fight was on! It started by moving into the room, almost running Hloomawl over, whaling at Ariana and Hloomawl with it's arms, and zapping people with the eyes of death. Nayla began calmly putting arrows into the eyes, disabling them. Ariana tossed a glass of holy water, but missed badly, while Nesta's alchemical fire mostly went behind the monster and failed to be very effective. Michael ineffectually peppered the main body with arrows, while Hloomawl smashed it with his flail.<br />
<br />
After it got into the main room, it suddenly expanded the main body, throwing Ariana and Nesta back. Hloomawl was so big and heavy that he managed to stay on his feet and prevented it from even hitting Michael. But now that it was so close, Michael dropped his bow in favor of an oversized falchion and began chopping away. One of the arms got a good grip on Ariana and tried to choke her, but her ultimate armor protected her. Nesta cut it off a couple of seconds later.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NIytyvsuOzg/WJTqEenQafI/AAAAAAAAByw/X3eHatlSJAMd3BR_jCimL_ibDiirgi7bwCLcB/s1600/Session4a.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="287" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NIytyvsuOzg/WJTqEenQafI/AAAAAAAAByw/X3eHatlSJAMd3BR_jCimL_ibDiirgi7bwCLcB/s400/Session4a.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Nayla has shot out two of the eyestalks, but the arms are flailing at Hloomawl and Ariana.<br />
Nesta has been knocked back by the pfft effect.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
The eyes continued to zap people, and everyone took at least a little damage, but Nayla won that particular archery duel. With only one arm left, and Ariana, Michael, and Hloomawl vigorously laying into it, it went down pretty quick.<br />
<br />
The delvers investigated the rest of the crypt, which appeared to have been some kind of religious sanctuary before the orcs defaced it. Still, the ruined books were salvaged, and gave some hints about religion and magic - enough to give anyone who read through them a Dabbler perk or two in any combination of Theology, Religious Ritual, Occultism, or Thaumotology. Normally, that wouldn't be interesting stuff, but the way New Dawn is set up, that was actually pretty useful treasure.<br />
<br />
At this point, Uhuk had to sign off for the night. <br />
<br />
<h3>
We're Off to Meet the Squallites</h3>
Finbar wanted the Resistance to make contact with the Squallite nomads living as refugees in the Virten Forest, and figured that since Michael was a Squallite from the Virten, he'd be an ideal guide. Unfortunately, Michael was under orders to not take anyone to visit the Squallites, so it was up to Nayla to track the Squallites.<br />
<br />
I looked it up in the rules - tracking a large group of people, after a week, is a tracking roll at -4. Nayla is not a great tracker and just failed. The delving group didn't have any place to be, so they kept trying and failing. After two days of this, Michael had a change of heart and decided to go against his orders and take everyone to the Squallites. Fortunately, he did know the way and that took two days.<br />
<br />
A Squallite Elder came down from a tree top refuge and talked to the PCs. I named him Gabriel, because I figured that Squallites had Hebrew names, based on the sample of one that I had. Eilmyn thought that hilariously, because apparently Michael's name is anomalous, especially for Squallites, and there's some other naming scheme. I didn't know, because she hadn't written that up in the character's background.<br />
<br />
At any rate, Elder Gabriel laid out the Squallites' position: go away and stop bothering us. Everyone began pleading with him for more Squallite magical reinforcements, but he was unmoved. Finally, they badgered him into a bargaining position: if the humans abandoned the entire south half of Cape Har, the Squallites would permit the Resistance to recruit ten Squallite druids per month, though the Resistance would still be responsible for outfitting them and paying them.<br />
<br />
This put the PCs in quite a quandary: they really needed to be able to recruit more wizards, and Squallite druids had a better training quality than what the few priests and wizards the Resistance could recruit from the human peasantry. So they really wanted the Squallite Druids. On the other hand, the Squallites were demanding that they displace several tens of thousands of people, including people the Resistance couldn't really speak for yet, in a move that would cripple the Resistance's tax base and ability to recruit armies.<br />
<br />
At this point, Michael piped up, pointing out that the Squallites really did need to contribute more to the Resistance or it would lose and the vengeful orcs would overrun the Virten. As the GM, I don't think that would actually happen, but having his man on the spot argue against him quite cut the wind out of Elder Gabriel's sails. Nesta and Ariana proposed an alternate allocation of land that gave the Squallites control of most of the Virten and some open land south of the forest, and Hloomawl managed to win the diplomacy contest thanks to some hefty bonuses from Michael's argument and complementary bonuses from everyone else.<br />
<br />
Eilmyn suddenly realized that the entire point of this negotiation was to get magical support from the Squallites, and she pointed out that in her original conception of the Squallites, they weren't a magical people. That was a surprising revelation, especially that late in the game. I overruled her and we moved on.<br />
<br />
The delvers spent the rest of the day working out the details, and then went back to Camp Liberty. At this point, we switched focus to the War Leaders in the north.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Cracking a Walnut with a Sledgehammer</h3>
When we'd <a href="http://noschoolgrognard.blogspot.com/2017/01/new-dawn-session-2.html" target="_blank">left the War Leaders</a>, there had been some confusion due to the massive effectiveness of wizards. That had been ret-conned, and the Resistance armies were in the liberated town of Harbuck, with the displaced remnants of the orcish company on the road north of them. The Resistance armies, at that point, consisted of about 700 light and medium infantry, a couple of companies of pikeman, a platoon or so archers, two platoons of kobold sappers, a squad of Squallite druids, and a light artillery piece. Reports put about 40-90 orcs on the road, with about a third of that cavalry, and smaller forces at the orcish fortress of Swartun and at a nameless orc stronghold in the northeast.<br />
<br />
Aisling proposed splitting up: she'd take some forces and finish off the orc remnants, while Skyler and Trahaern took Swartun. She grabbed some units, including the druids, and headed north. Skyler, Trahaern, and Greex went east and arrived at Swartun at the end of day's march.<br />
<br />
Slightly after the Resistance force arrived from the west round, a squad of orcish infantry and a squad of orcish archers came down the north road. They were the garrison from the nameless stronghold in the northeast, evacuating an untenable position for the security of Swartun. Unfortunately for them, Greex's scouts spotted them coming and the Resistance ambushed them. With 1 to 20 odds in numbers against them, while facing a super general with artillery and archery supremacy, the orcs didn't have a chance and were wiped out before they recovered.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pmPEIThbl5o/WJTqfgueVZI/AAAAAAAABy0/SRbgt-Ud2XE5rNMwMoOFqu8RBWcvJ02LwCLcB/s1600/Session4b.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="322" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pmPEIThbl5o/WJTqfgueVZI/AAAAAAAABy0/SRbgt-Ud2XE5rNMwMoOFqu8RBWcvJ02LwCLcB/s400/Session4b.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Siege of Swartun. Skyler and Trahaern overrun the fortress from the southwest, while Aisling grinds <br />
down an orc force to the northwest.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
The next day, Skyler and Trahaern stormed Swartun. This went slightly better for the orcs, as they had a massive fortress, but they still only had twenty guys defending it and numbers count for a lot in mass combat.<br />
<br />
<br />
<h3>
Cracking a Vault with a Tack Hammer</h3>
Aisling went after the orc field force, but they headed east across the fields to pick up the Dons-Swartun road. They weren't faster than she was, but they weren't slower, either, and they managed to keep ahead of her until the second day when she used a forced march to catch up with them. She had enough light infantry to win the Reconaissance contest, and there was a meeting engagement within sight of Swartun's walls, but the orcs were surprised again.<br />
<br />
Unfortunately for Aisling, she hadn't brought nearly enough forces to fight these orcs. They had cavalry, archery, artillery, and troop strength advantage and a slightly better general. Aisling had enough Gifted Commander advantages to almost offset the orc advantages, but her edge was slight. She raided them in the first round and attacked in the second, but her margins of victory were pretty minimal and the second round was a tie. The orcs retreated on the third round, and actually managed to beat Aisling, so they didn't suffer any more casualties. Aisling had still inflicted 20% losses on them before they fled, and that meant another orcish infantry squad died. Aisling again managed to reduce her losses to 0, but only at the cost of not pursuing the orcs any farther<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-duwwAHGZ1m4/WJTqxAKxE0I/AAAAAAAABy8/kc0uMp4Zq30Bk53ao5NcU1mD1j227hyuQCLcB/s1600/Session4c.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="321" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-duwwAHGZ1m4/WJTqxAKxE0I/AAAAAAAABy8/kc0uMp4Zq30Bk53ao5NcU1mD1j227hyuQCLcB/s400/Session4c.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Liberation land is in white, while the new Squallite territory is orange on the lower right corner.<br />
The remnants of the orc company are on the road to Rora. Grid is 2 miles to the hex.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
The orcs fled cross-country, sliding around Swartun and ending up on the road to the last orcish stronghold in Engenstut Country. The Resistance armies reunited in Swartun and contemplated their next moves.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Review of Play</h3>
Like I said at the start, this was a pretty good session. I'm not saying it was perfect, but there it was entertaining and progressed the game's plot. Still, there was a bit of weirdness.<br />
<br />
First off, I have no idea why the delvers, many of whom were run by veteran players, were so unprepared for the idea that the monster beyond the barricade would be dangerous. Most of them accepted that it was a boss monster and should be dangerous, but they were surprised by it anyway. I think they didn't expect the monster to be waiting for them to open the door, even though clearing the barricade wouldn't have been quiet. And certainly having everyone get tagged by the death rays woke them up to the danger!<br />
<br />
The second attack was only slightly better executed that then first. Kiara was clever to hide back in the crypts, limited the damage she took from the death rays while using her range and accuracy to best advantage. Kevin, Uhuk,and Eilmyn were all over the place: I don't think Eilmyn ever realized that shooting the Unliving and armored bone pile with arrows was a waste of time, despite my emphasizing how little her arrows were penetrating, and I don't think she got that her sword was more effective against the arms than Ariana and Hloomawl's crushing weapons, even though I played that up in the descriptions of their blows, too. The use of grenades was a fiasco, too: neither Ariana nor Nesta hit, and they had enough grenades that they could have set up mini-mines for Nayla or Michael to detonate with arrows.<br />
<br />
The monster, for what it's worth, was effectively four Eyes of Death, two modified Slughorns, and most of a Undead Ooze (all from Dungeon Fantasy: Monsters 1) all glommed together into one boss monster. I kept track of each element of the thing separately. The Undead Ooze lost it's Diffuse quality, because none of the PCs really had area attacks. The intent was that Nayla and Michael could shoot out the eyes, while Nesta could cut up the arms and Ariana and Hloomawl could smash the main body. My plan sort of worked.<br />
<br />
Possibly the section that I was most disappointed with was the Squallites. This was supposed to be a fun little role-playing bit, with Michael hopefully deliberately leading the group in circles until they confronted him about how he wasn't actually taking them to the Squallites. It would have put the spotlight on Eilmyn. Unfortunately, the GM can set up an opportunity for a player, but the GM can't make them embrace it. Still, negotiations are usually interesting and it worked out. It just could have been better.<br />
<br />
The battles went fairly well. I handwaved the ambush of the orc squads, which was the right decision, and only played out one round of the siege of Swartun to get a sense of how much the PCs outmatched their opposition. That still took longer to play out than I expected, and then the inconclusive fight between Aisling and the orc remnants dragged out a bit. Integrating Mass Combat elements into a well-paced session continues to be a challenge.<br />
<br />
<h3>
What Next</h3>
Aisling's little adventure has demonstrated that while the Resistance can defeat isolated companies of orcs, they pretty much need all their forces together to do that. That's something of a problem for them, because they need to garrison their west flank while they move east, and they'd also like to take some of their better troops and retrain and refit them. My feeling is that they should just summon as much militia as they can and not worry about the damage to their tax base, but I don't know what they'll do.<br />
<br />
My current concern is figuring out ways to pace this campaign and provide interesting things to do without having the battles overrun everything. Obviously, the battles should be a focus of the campaign, but what I think I'd like to see is a climatic battle every session, with adventuring and role-playing interludes building up to that. I think about military fiction that I enjoy, especially Taylor Anderson's Destroyermen, and that's roughly how he paces his story. It's a good model to try to emulate.<br />
<br />
I've got a possible role-playing twist for the War Leaders in next session, depending on when they do it, but I need to prepare it some more. For the Delvers, I think Finbar is going to send them into Orcish territory to make contact with the northern Resistance, and there's lots of possibilities there. Of course, I can only set up opportunities for the players to do stuff - it's up to them do take advantage of them.Mark Langsdorfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00301984145275679568noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1287550692312955328.post-91498349171939659792017-01-30T17:28:00.000-08:002017-06-24T06:01:42.034-07:00Defense Strategies in Mass Combat<b>Precis</b>: A quick review of the ways to get a Defense Bonus in Mass Combat<br />
<br />
In my Mass Combat game, there's been some confusion about when a force can benefit from a Defense Bonus and when it can use the various defense strategies. I was pretty confused myself, and when I went back and rechecked the rules, I realized I was confused because the conditions are pretty confusing. So I want to write about all the conditions and what they require.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-AEaoR090Tsg/WB8hQX7tf1I/AAAAAAAABGg/pPT9N-lBp2kV2PfVzfVOtvJyv10Uy0ZDgCPcB/s1600/Gettysburg_Battle_Map_Day3.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-AEaoR090Tsg/WB8hQX7tf1I/AAAAAAAABGg/pPT9N-lBp2kV2PfVzfVOtvJyv10Uy0ZDgCPcB/s320/Gettysburg_Battle_Map_Day3.png" width="209" /></a></div>
<br />
Mass Combat distinguishes between pitched and encounter battles, and mobile, encamped, and bunkered forces. As an additional complication, a force can be surprised or ambushed. How does all that effect available battle strategies?<br />
<br />
<br />
<table><colgroup><col width="100"></col>
</colgroup>
<tbody>
<tr><td><b>Battle Type</b></td><td><b>Force Condition</b></td><td><b>Available Strategies</b></td><td><b>Defense Bonus</b></td><td><b>House Rule Defense Bonus</b></td></tr>
<tr><td>Encounter</td><td>Mobile</td><td>Any but Deliberate Attack or Deliberate Retreat<br />
No defenses except Mobile Defense on 1st round;<br />
No retreat strategies on 1st round</td><td></td><td>No</td></tr>
<tr><td>Encounter</td><td>Encamped</td><td>Any but Deliberate Attack or Deliberate Retreat</td><td>Can't get DB</td><td>Yes</td></tr>
<tr><td>Encounter</td><td>Bunkered</td><td>Any but Deliberate Attack or Deliberate Retreat</td><td>Can get DB</td><td>Yes</td></tr>
<tr><td>Pitched</td><td>Mobile</td><td>Any; can't choose Deliberate Defense after 1st round or at all without a DB</td><td>Can get DB with initiative</td><td>With iniative</td></tr>
<tr><td>Pitched</td><td>Encamped</td><td>Any; can't choose Deliberate Defense after 1st round or at all without a DB</td><td>Can get DB with initiative</td><td>Yes</td></tr>
<tr><td>Pitched</td><td>Bunkered</td><td>Any; can't choose Deliberate Defense after 1st round or at all without a DB</td><td>Can't win initiative so can't get DB</td><td>Yes</td></tr>
<tr><td>Pitched</td><td>Mobile Ambusher</td><td>Any but Defensive</td><td>Gets DB even without a defense strategy</td><td>Yes</td></tr>
<tr><td>Pitched</td><td>Mobile Ambushee</td><td>Must Rally until confusion is cleared or Full Retreat; can't choose Deliberate Attack</td><td>Lost initiative so doesn't get DB</td><td>No</td></tr>
<tr><td>Pitched</td><td>Encamped or Bunkered Ambushee</td><td>Must Rally until confusion is cleared or Full Retreat; can't choose Deliberate Attack</td><td>Lost initiative so doesn't get DB</td><td>Yes</td></tr>
<tr><td>Pitched</td><td>Besieger</td><td>Any</td><td></td><td>No</td></tr>
<tr><td>Pitched</td><td>Besieged</td><td>Any Defense except Rally, or Raid</td><td>Can't win initiative so can't get DB</td><td>Yes</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
This actually turned out to be more confusing than I intended. Bunkered forces can never win initiative in the Recon contest (Mass Combat 29) but that means they can never win the initiative contest and can only get a Defense Bonus if they're lucky enough to have a mobile force trip over them in a forced encounter battle. Encamped forces can win initiative and force an encounter battle, but if they do, they don't get any Defense Bonus. This makes very little sense.<br />
<br />
I double checked the <a href="http://www.sjgames.com/errata/gurps/4e/mass-combat.html" target="_blank">Mass Combat errata</a> and this is apparently how the system is supposed to work, unless I'm missing something.<br />
<br />
I think the easiest and most understandable house rule is to rule that encamped forces always get a defense bonus unless they have the No Security posture.<br />
<br />Mark Langsdorfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00301984145275679568noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1287550692312955328.post-27653967317411496622017-01-27T07:58:00.002-08:002017-02-04T15:25:06.213-08:00New Dawn Session 3: Wight Men Can't Jump<b>Precis</b>: A group of adventurers investigate a heavily trapped ruin and encounter a bunch of ghouls.<br />
<br />
This was the third session of my <a href="http://noschoolgrognard.blogspot.com/search/label/New%20Dawn" target="_blank">New Dawn</a> campaign. One of the elements of New Dawn that was forced on me by the players is that is a troupe style game, with each player having two characters. The <a href="http://noschoolgrognard.blogspot.com/2017/01/new-dawn-session-2.html" target="_blank">second session</a> focused on the military exploits of one group of characters; this session focused on some old school style delving of the second group.<br />
<br />
Kevin <a href="http://newdawn.wikia.com/wiki/ND/Session_3" target="_blank">recapped this session</a>, too, for a view from a player's side.<br />
<h3>
<a href="http://newdawn.wikia.com/wiki/ND/Resistance" target="_blank">Cast of Characters</a></h3>
<ul>
<li><a class="g-profile" href="https://plus.google.com/115373610030621027923" target="_blank">+Uhuk of the Guard</a>'s Hloomawl, a minotaur princeling and mighty warrior.</li>
<li><a class="g-profile" href="https://plus.google.com/116541461100903445865" target="_blank">+Eric Schmidt</a>'s Nesta Bowen, a human master spy with a grudge against the orcs.</li>
<li><a class="g-profile" href="https://plus.google.com/100396225121044993077" target="_blank">+Eilmyn Davidson</a>'s Michael Jones, a Squallite archer.</li>
<li><a class="g-profile" href="https://plus.google.com/115413841072686813753" target="_blank">+Kevin Smyth</a>'s Ariana Rees, a human blacksmith and minor saint.</li>
<li>Kiara Schmidt's Nayla, a supernaturally skilled archer.</li>
<li><i>Finbar Gullvan</i>, the old man of the Resistance </li>
</ul>
<br />
<h3>
Role-Playing and Perceptions</h3>
While I was doing prepwork for the game, Eilmyn stated that she thought the game was supposed to entirely be a war story with no character growth. I was rather disappointed by this, since I thought I'd made it clear that New Dawn was more than just a sequence of mass battles: there was going to be role-playing, spying, delving, diplomacy, and all kinds of stuff. I could see how she might have missed that point, because there hadn't been much space for role-playing in the first two sessions. I apologized, publicly restated the campaign's themes, and admitted that I'm still learning how to pace the game.<br />
<br />
I was a little bemused, though, because I had originally planned to have a role-playing scene in the second session, but it was centered around Hloomawl, and Uhuk wasn't able to make it to the game that week so I had to postpone it. But now I had the opportunity and I ran with it.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.relatably.com/m/img/selfish-memes/0f9b9db32d0609e264091385f7b264e0d7f22151787d027208a30c177866190d.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.relatably.com/m/img/selfish-memes/0f9b9db32d0609e264091385f7b264e0d7f22151787d027208a30c177866190d.jpg" height="297" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
Hloomawl is Selfish. It's almost never a disadvantage that I see on PCs, because it makes you a self-important prick concerned with status and social dominance. It's not something that most of the nerdish people who play RPGs find appealing. But for whatever reason, Hloomawl is Selfish. Furthermore, Ariana had made Trahaern, the Resistance general, a really nice dueling glaive, and then spent most of a week making herself an extremely nice suit of armor (DR 11 very fine plate). Hloomawl hadn't gotten anything, and in his opinion, how could that possibly be just?<br />
<br />
I'm afraid I ambushed Uhuk with the concept, but she rolled with it and had Hloomawl stomp in and confront Ariana. Nesta isn't selfish, but she wasn't too satisfied with the sword the kobold smiths had made her, either, and she also laid in Ariana for focusing on her own armor instead of making good stuff for everyone. Ariana stood her ground and yelled back at people, which is probably not the best way to reason with a minotaur with Bad Temper. Ariana claimed that she was inspired by the Forge-God, and made what he wanted her to make, and she didn't control it. Since neither Hloomawl nor Nesta had ever heard of Volundr, this was not the best argument, but Ariana performed a minor miracle by sticking her hand into the middle of the forge with burning it. (As an aside, I had to remind Kevin that he had to say a prayer before performing that trick in order to activate the Learned Prayer, and he acknowledged that he could have used Flesh Wounds to heal the damage as different Learned Prayer afterwards but it probably wouldn't have been as amazing.) Hloomawl and Nesta didn't sign up for Volundr's priesthood, but they did stop grumbling, and Ariana stayed up all night making Hloomawl a fine and balanced flail.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Curious Things are Curious</h3>
Finbar is the Old Man of the Resistance. He's my deliberate GMPC who is there to prod the PCs in the directions I'd like them to go when they can't think of things to do. In this case, he pointed out that there was a ruined building surrounded by a wall on the grounds of Camp Liberty, and he'd like them to go sort it out. There were rumors about the ruins being dangerous, and the remaining levied Resistance soldiers weren't interested in exploring.<br />
<br />
The orcs had a couple of watchtowers that overlooked the ruins, so the PCs tromped up and took a look. The ruins were a mass of rubble. At the south end, there was what looked to be a covered entrance into the ground. Six huge stone blocks, topped with crystals, were in a hexagon around the entrance. Beyond that was a crudely built and maintained rubble wall, around 8' to 11' tall, topped with logs. Someone had pounded spikes into the logs to discourage climbing the walls. About 15' past the rubble wall on the outside was a low, poorly built split-rail fence. The fence was possibly sufficient to keep out unambitious sheep, but anything smaller could climb through it, and anything larger or more nimble could go over or through it. All of this roused the PCs' curiousity. They climbed back down from the tower and to the fence.<br />
<br />
Nesta checked for traps (and blew the secret rolls) but didn't find any. Ariana hopped over the fence and strode off toward the wall, only to put her foot into a gopher hole with caltrops on the bottom. Fortunately, she was wearing DR11 plate boots and the caltrops failed to penetrate her armor and the hole failed to break her ankle, though she did fall over ungracefully. Ungraceful falls turned into a running theme. Looking around more carefully, the PCs spotted a lot of gopher holes. They finally went and found some lumber - included a couple of pieces of plywood with rope handles on them - and used those to make a platform to walk on.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-AAmRidndT2M/WIu8jY7VxmI/AAAAAAAABb8/oI0mcbp7chQF2hs0ODekg1sZs-Fo_oMQgCLcB/s1600/Sessio3a.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="478" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-AAmRidndT2M/WIu8jY7VxmI/AAAAAAAABb8/oI0mcbp7chQF2hs0ODekg1sZs-Fo_oMQgCLcB/s640/Sessio3a.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Nesta and Ariana investigate layered defenses: fence, caltrops, <br />
pit traps, spiked wall, more pits, and lightning dispensers.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Approaching the wall, Nesta again checked for traps (and failed again). She almost fell into a concealed trench at the base of the wall, but caught herself at the last second. More lumber was used to make a bridge to the base of the wall, and then the agile climbers easily scaled it, cleared off the spikes, and tied off a rope for the less talented climbers.<br />
<br />
On the other side of the wall, Nesta checked for traps again and finally spotted a trap before it went off: there was another trench at the base of the interior side of the wall. This was somewhat trickier to evade, because people had to climb down the side of the wall and then make the jump to clear the trench. Michael and Hloomawl both failed and fell into the trench, but managed to catch themselves on the far side, damaging only their dignity.<br />
<br />
Nesta took point, heading toward the rubble, crystal-topped blocks, and possible entrance. She was looking down, probing ahead of her for pits and traps. Although she did see the crystals start growing, she was focused on what was happening ahead of her, and was pretty badly surprised when the next set of crystals zapped her with a lightning bolt. Fortunately, it wasn't her Destiny to die that day and she managed to dodge. That set of crystals stopped glowing, but Nesta didn't want to continue on.<br />
<br />
Ariana borrowed Hloomawl's large kite shield and put her own on her right arm. Holding her shield above her and Hloomawl's in front, she cautiously advanced toward another set of crystals. It started glowing and when she got close enough, blasted her with lightning. She calmly blocked, and then discovered that magically lightning can't really be blocked with wooden shields. She was blasted for a lot of damage, that her armor didn't protect her against, and thrown back. Fortunately she has the Flesh Wounds Learned Prayer, and could regenerate her injuries in about ten minutes. Again, the crystals dimmed after releasing the lightning.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/conditional_risk.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/conditional_risk.png" height="271" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
The PCs tried a couple of methods to disarm the lightning generators. Hloomawl and the archers attacked them, but their weapons did nothing, not even Nayla's scattershot arrows. Nesta, being Callous, proposed using a couple of the remaining goblin prisoners to clear the mines, but almost everyone else had Pacifism: Cannot Harm Innocents or a Soldier's Code of Honor, and that suggestion was vetoed to Nesta's annoyance. Finally, Ariana proposed strapping herself into several layers of leather armor and clearing the lightning generators herself. I double checked to see if anyone had a better plan than brute force and ignorance, but no one did.<br />
<br />
Ariana got blasted a couple of times, but not for more damage than she could easily heal with Flesh Wounds, and the lightning generators were cleared. While Ariana changed back into her nice armor, Hloomawl cleared the rubble. There was a pit entrance there, leading down into a dimly lit room filled with ash covered rubble.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Down the Rabbit Hole</h3>
At this point, I noted that it was about 20' down to the floor. People with the Acrobatics skill could hang off the edge and drop about 5 yards, and with a successful Acrobatics roll take no damage, and people without could make a DX roll (penalized by encumbrance) to only fall about 4 yards or so - less for Hloomawl and Michael, since they are very tall. Michael had Acrobatics and jumped down.<br />
<br />
This caused a bit of confusion, as to when exactly Michael jumped down: as soon as Hloomawl had cleared the entrance, or after Nesta and Nayla had tied their ropes together and tied them off a nearby block and dangled the rest down the hole? Eilmyn claimed I had told her to go down the hole, which I hadn't, but the claim did annoy me. It didn't help when I retroactively realized that Michael had Danger Sense, and would have known that going down the hole was dangerous. Eilmyn argued that if Michael was going to let danger stop him, he would have stayed on the other side of the fence, and I couldn't argue with that.<br />
<br />
At the bottom of the hole, Michael's night vision let him see he was in a large room, and his keen hearing let him (and Hloomawl above) hear that there were multiple other things in the room - things larger than a rabbit and smaller than a crocodile. Hloomawl activated his glow vial, dangled off the ledge, and dropped down. His size worked against him, and he took enough damage damage in the drop to make it past his hoof DR, though nowhere near enough to cripple his foot.<br />
<br />
The extra light let Hloomawl and Michael see they were in some kind of large, vaulted chamber with three side passages in each of the east and west walls. Also, something was in the side passages. They barely had time to ready their weapons before a pack of animated dead bodies came charging out, screaming "Flesh!" and "Hungry!" from desiccated throats.<br />
<br />
The fight was on! Ariana followed Hloomawl's lead and dropped down, taking some injury despite her armor. Hloomawl brained the first ghoul to get near Michael, stunning it and effectively taking it out of the fight. It had a HT of 12, but still took 5 seconds to recover from that stun, and by that time the archers were nearly out of targets and were free to concentrate fire on it before it got back off the ground. Nayla provided overwatch fire from above. Ariana bashed ghouls as they approached and Michael shot and dodged.<br />
<br />
One of the ghouls had been a knight, and was still in his rusted armor. Michael shot him at short range, and the arrow bounced off the knight's armor (though he critically failed his block and his shield disintegrated, which would prove crucial). Nayla shot him from above, and the knight didn't bothered to defend, but the arrow curved in flight and struck him in the eye. The knight was tough enough that this strike didn't kill him, but it did stun him and effectively take him out of the melee.<br />
<br />
Another ghoul was a spellcaster, and he started flinging deathbolts around. One missed Ariana and almost hit Michael, but Hloomawl interposed his shield, only to discover that deathbolts are cosmically irresistible against DR and don't care. Fortunately, the damage was low and Hloomawl has High Pain Threshold, so he sucked it. Ariana wasn't as fortunate on the second shot, and took more damage and felt it. Hloomawl left Michael to his own devices and charged across a rubble field to get to the spellcaster. This next bit was a comedy of errors: Hloomawl was going for telegraphed head shots, to put the ghoul down in one shot, but the ghoul was agile enough to avoid the blows but couldn't really do much against Hloomawl either.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-uJrT2I0rGvA/WIu85s3y2mI/AAAAAAAABcA/p-dN2g6Yk30qWsZIPiVckHRcgWI2vWqnACLcB/s1600/Session3b.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="358" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-uJrT2I0rGvA/WIu85s3y2mI/AAAAAAAABcA/p-dN2g6Yk30qWsZIPiVckHRcgWI2vWqnACLcB/s640/Session3b.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ariana engages ghouls while Hloomawl flails at the spellcaster and Nayla provides covering fire.<br />
The ghoul knight is already dead from arrows to the eyes.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Ariana, Nayla, and Michael whittled down the ghouls in the melee. Generally Nayla and Michael would slow them down with arrows, and then Ariana would hit them in the skulls with a hammer to kill them. Michael had to dodge and retreat a bit from the ghouls, but he was lucky (literally) and none of them hit him. Nesta stayed above, frantically tying a rope together. I asked Eric if he wanted her to jump down, but he didn't, since she wasn't very well armored and wasn't a melee fighter anyway, but a scout, spy, and sneaky thief.<br />
<br />
Eventually, Ariana managed to join Hloomawl against the spellcaster. Nayla finished off the knight with a second arrow to the eye before he got to his feet, and Michael and Nayla killed off the brained ghoul with arrow shots about as soon as he recovered from stun. Ariana sent another telegraphed hammer shot at the ghoul spellcaster, and iterative probability caught up with him and he took the hit, stunning him and knocking him to the ground. Michael finished him off.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Tidying Up</h3>
Nesta finally finished getting her rope ready, and she and Nayla climbed down while the other PCs investigated. They appeared to be in some kind of crypt, though the ghouls had long since eaten the corpses. Someone had desecrated and vandalized all the religious icons and paintings on the walls, and the altar was smashed to rubble.<br />
<br />
There was one more passage out of the crypt, a set of double doors leading to a small antechamber that was flled with sooty rubble. It looked like the ghouls had piled the rubble as a blockade against whatever was in the room to the north. Hloomawl and Ariana cleared away the rubble, and could smell something stinky to high heaven in the next room. But it was getting late, so I ended the session.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Technical Issues</h3>
We were using MapTools, and as usual, it proved to be the worst virtual tabletop except all the others. The first issue was that I had drawn both the catacombs and the above ground ruins on the same map, but forgotten this minor detail when I first started describing things to the players. So they were all on the catacomb portion of the map, and what I was describing did not at all match what they were seeing and Kiara thought I was insane. That got cleared up after they pointed it out to me, but it was silly.<br />
<br />
The second and weirder issue happened when they climbed over the wall. For some reason, the light sources I'd placed inside the wall weren't working, and no one could see anything outside of their immediate vicinity. I wasted a few minutes trying to figure it out before turning off the night setting and moving on, but again, silly and annoying.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Review of Play</h3>
Overall, this was a good session. It had some low points, but they were pretty minor and I liked the multiply trapped orc defenses.<br />
<br />
New Dawn is third in a series of games that at least somewhat involve Dungeon Fantasy style delving, but with character design so different from DF that it's hard to guess how dangerous foes should be. <a href="http://noschoolgrognard.blogspot.com/search/label/Mecha%20Against%20the%20Giants" target="_blank">Mecha Against the Giants</a> had characters with wonderful weapons and armor and it was fairly safe to throw hordes of monsters at them. <a href="http://noschoolgrognard.blogspot.com/2017/01/new-dawn-session-2.html" target="_blank">Castle of Horrors</a> had characters with sometimes wonderful weapons and inadequate armor and healing, and the combats were noticeably swingy. New Dawn has characters that range from insanely well armored (Ariana) and fairly dangerous (Hloomawl), to underequipped thieves (Nesta) and frankly unarmored archers (Michael). I really had no idea if the ghouls were going to blow through the PCs or be pushovers, but they had a couple of attacks that could penetrate DR but nothing that was too damaging. I think it worked out in the end: Arianna and Hloomawl took a couple of hits, Michael got lucky, and Nayla and Nesta stayed away from sources of damage. It makes me feel pretty good about next week's fight, good enough that I'll probably power it up a bit.<br />
<br />
I liked the little bit of role-playing at the start. Uhuk did a good job of picking up on it, even with little prep, and Eric jumped in with Nesta's own concerns. I wish Kiara and Eilmyn had participated more, but you can only give people opportunities, you can't make them take advantage of them. There should be more scenes next week that deal directly with Michael, so hopefully there'll be more role-playing then.<br />
<br />
<h3>
What Next?</h3>
The <a href="http://noschoolgrognard.blogspot.com/2017/02/new-dawn-session-4-on-misapplication-of.html" target="_blank">fourth session</a> is going to start with the PCs opening the door and finding out what stinks in the next room. After they've cleared the dungeon, Finbar is going to send them to find the Squallites of the local forest and see if the PCs can convince the Squallites to commit more forces to the Resistance. I'm expecting that to take about three hours in all, which isn't quite a full session. Unless I think of something better, we're going to shift focus back to the northern group and their battles at the end of the session. It's not a perfect way to make sure that Mass Combat doesn't dominate a session, but it's good enough for now.Mark Langsdorfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00301984145275679568noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1287550692312955328.post-2339767633378152382017-01-20T14:30:00.002-08:002017-02-04T15:25:02.218-08:00New Dawn Session 2<b>Precis</b>: In the second session of the New Dawn campaign, the PCs reorganize their army and strike north, until to discover the orcs are on the move. The group as a whole discovers some issues with the Mass Combat rules, and some fixes and retcons are performed after the game.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://newdawn.wikia.com/wiki/ND/Resistance" target="_blank">Cast of Characters</a><br />
We're doing troupe style play, with each player controlling two characters. So half the cast from <a href="http://noschoolgrognard.blogspot.com/2017/01/new-dawn-session-1.html">last time</a> wasn't here. <a class="g-profile" href="https://plus.google.com/115373610030621027923" target="_blank">+Uhuk of the Guard</a> was entirely absent due to some life concerns but she'll be back next week.<br />
<ul>
<li><a class="g-profile" href="https://plus.google.com/116541461100903445865" target="_blank">+Eric Schmidt</a>'s Trahaern ab Owen, a human master strategist.</li>
<li><a class="g-profile" href="https://plus.google.com/100396225121044993077" target="_blank">+Eilmyn Davidson</a>'s Skyler Therris, a human reprobate, warrior, and general.</li>
<li><a class="g-profile" href="https://plus.google.com/115413841072686813753" target="_blank">+Kevin Smyth</a>'s Aisling Mhic Muiris, a Nymph ambassador from the Fae court.</li>
<li>Kiara Schmidt's Greex "Wrongway", a cowardly kobold spymaster. </li>
</ul>
Kevin <a href="http://newdawn.wikia.com/wiki/ND/Session_2" target="_blank">recapped this session</a>, too, for a view from a player's side.<br />
<br />
<h3>
The GM Makes Plans</h3>
I'd sent out some email to my players last Sunday, asking for some plans from them so I could prepare for the game. I didn't get much response, which rather annoyed me, but I rolled with it and came up with some plans.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-pvCJS8nVJyA/WIJ7VIKykpI/AAAAAAAABV4/bZXG9UvqBRYaPSrl2EchXMVTJvES67FtACLcB/s1600/Session2a.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="196" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-pvCJS8nVJyA/WIJ7VIKykpI/AAAAAAAABV4/bZXG9UvqBRYaPSrl2EchXMVTJvES67FtACLcB/s200/Session2a.png" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Orcish movement: couriers in orange,<br />
infantry in red, cavalry in brown.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Some of the orc survivors from the battle at the end of last session had managed to make it to the orcish fortress of Swartun, and I tried to figure out what the orcs would do. Their typical response would have been to have six to eight full companies garrisoning Swartun, and that force would sally out and eliminate the Resistance uprising. Unfortunately for the orcs, those companies had left the country, and there was only one company left at Swartun and another three within a few days march. So couriers were dispatched with orders, detachments were left at strongholds, and orcish infantry and cavalry marched back to Swartun and on to the town of Harbuck. At Harbuck, the infantry took up positions guarding the bridge, while the cavalry went south to perform a reconnaissance in force.<br />
<br />
The PCs marched north on the same day the orcs arrived in Swartun, and ran into the cavalry force on the next day.<br />
<br />
<h3>
The Skirmish near Harbuck</h3>
As there were three PC commanders (Trahaern, Skyler, and Aisling), the PCs divided their forces into three groups according to my house rules. Aisling got most of the archery and artillery, while the other two had most of the infantry on the flanks. They faced off against 8 elements of orcish heavy cavalry (the lead elements of the four nearest orc companies) and 3 elements of goblin wolf riders (horse archers) acting as scouts.<br />
<br />
The first round of combat was a little confusing: Trahaern on the left flank held his ground with his Gifted Commander: Stonewall advantage, while Aisling attempted to use her Gifted Commander: Cunning advantage to get some bonuses from an Indirect Attack. Skyler had the Gifted Commander: Death or Glory, which gives bonuses for Desperate and All-Out strategies, so he All-Out Attacked on the right flank: that's right, the pikemen charged the heavy cavalry. The orcs skirmished or raided, and soundly lost the round, taking some casualties.<br />
<br />
The PCs pushed on the orcs on the second round, hoping to finish them off, but the orcs had done enough recon and realized they were outmatched and went into Full Retreat. The PCs caused some more casualties on the orcs, but not much more, and the orcs fled back to Harbuck.<br />
<br />
The PCs could have pursued them, but infantry pursuing cavalry is a losing game, and decided to hold the field instead which reduced their casualties to 0%. There had been some bruising and a few of the troops disabled, but no deaths and nothing that effected the strength of the Resistance army. They spent the rest of the day resting and looting the battlefield.<br />
<br />
<h3>
The Battle of Harbuck</h3>
The next day, the Resistance army advanced to Harbuck, which was on the other side of a narrow bridge and guarded by two or three hundred orcs: cavalry, infantry, archers, and most noticeably, battle wizards. The PCs had a quick conference and decided they didn't want to force the bridge, but fortunately, there was a nearby ford that would let them safely to the other side of the river and hit the orcs from the side.<br />
<br />
Trahaern got left with a token force to pin the orcs down while Skyler and Aisling took most of the army to the ford. Goblin wolfrider scouts spotted the PC army in motion, and the orcish cavalry sallied forth to block the ford.<br />
<br />
I started to set up the battle at the ford, and while I was doing that, I noticed that remaining orc forces noticeably outnumbered Trahaern's blocking force. I figured that he was superior commander to the orc leader, especially on defense, but the orcs wouldn't know that, so having the orcs attack him would make sense from the orcs' perspective and keep a player in the game. It was a win-win, or so I thought.<br />
<br />
Aisling and Skyler won the recon contest at the ford, and managed to make it an encounter battle, which prevented the orc cavalry from making an effective defense of the ford - basically, the Resistance army crossed significant forces before the orcs arrived. Aisling mixed it up with raids and indirect attacks, grinding the orcs down without taking any casualties, while Skyler charged all in again. Skyler's tactics triumphed, again, but his margin of victory was pretty low and he ended up taking nearly as many losses as he caused. Regardless, in three rounds, the remaining orcs were fleeing with the Resistance in hot pursuit.<br />
<br />
The battle at the bridge did not go nearly so well. Four elements of Battle Mages gave the orcs overwhelming Fire, Artillery, and Command and Control advantage, to a degree I didn't really expect, and Trahaern got trounced on the first round, losing position and taking heavy casualties. He also rolled poorly in Misfortunes of War, not helped by the habitual high Risk modifier the PCs had adopted, and took enough injury to nearly knock him out. The orcs charged into his feigned retreat on the second round, but their massive position and class superiority bonuses and Trahaern's casualties meant that Trahaern took it on the chin, again. And another botched Misfortune of War caused even more injury to him, leaving him at almost -1xHP and a death check and certainly out of command. The captain of the artillery unit took over command and staged a credible retreat, but Trahaern's command took 60% casualties and failed to dislodge the orcs.<br />
<br />
Overall, it was a dark day for the Resistance. Attriting the orcish cavalry wasn't worth splitting their army, taking substantial losses, and almost losing their best commander.<br />
<br />
<h3>
The Battle of Fiddler's Ridge</h3>
Skyler, Aisling, and Greex proceeded to move away from Harbuck and recruit some new resistance forces. The orcs pounced on them later that day. Thanks to some lucky rolls and destiny point spending by Greex, the PCs managed to ambush the orcs again. But once again, the massive class superiority bonuses provided by the orcish battle mages put the PCs into a losing situation: the PCs didn't do overwhelmingly well on the first round of the ambush, when they had the most advantages, and on the second round they were defeated and took much more casualties than the orcs. I stopped the game for lack of time before playing out the third round.<br />
<br />
<h3>
What Went Wrong</h3>
<h4>
The Triumph of the Battle Mages</h4>
Mass Combat makes battle mages really potent: an element of battle wizards has the same base troop strength as an element of heavy cavalry, but the battle wizards also provide a host of class superiority bonuses. For structural reasons in the game background, the orcs have a limited number of wizards, but at this point, the PCs have none. Which results in the orcs having overwhelming class superiority in a couple of classes when the wizards are present at a battle, and the PCs having a hard time to defeat them.<br />
<br />
Arguably, this is what supposed to happen in a fantasy world if you don't have wizards and the other side does: you lose, badly. But although I want wizards to be part of the game and not somewhat common, I don't want them to be so dominant that a single squad of wizards cancels a five to one advantage in numbers. I don't think the actual mechanics of GURPS make wizards that valuable, and I especially don't think the magic systems I'm using in the game (low point cost Divine Favor and Sorcery) make wizards that valuable. And just from a game balance perspective, there's no other unit where the absence or presence makes such a huge difference. If you don't any cavalry or pikemen and your opponent has cavalry, you're at a disadvantage, but you're not guaranteed to lose absent overwhelming advantages in troop numbers, strategy, and circumstances. But if you don't have wizards and your opponent does, you'll lose even if you're the better general with more troops.<br />
<br />
<h4>
Too Many Battles</h4>
This was more a question of pacing, and something of a minor issue, but there was too many battles and not enough other stuff in the game. Three battles in a session took up all the time and turned the game into more of a wargame with cumbersome mechanics than a role-playing game with the occasional battle.<br />
<br />
I'm less upset about this problem. I mean, it was a problem, but we're learning the rules of Mass Combat and I've never ran a game anything like this before. I'll have to figure out how to address it in the future, but I think it's just a question of pacing and plotting that will get resolved with more experience. I just want to point it out for other GMs that are planing Mass Combat games: think about how you're going to pace the battles so they're an occasional climax of a session, not the dominating factor in every game.<br />
<br />
<h3>
What Went Right</h3>
A lot of things went wrong this session, but nevertheless, some things went well. The <a href="http://noschoolgrognard.blogspot.com/2016/11/multifront-battles-in-gurps-mass-combat.html" target="_blank">multifront battle rules</a> worked really well, and kept all the PC commanders engaged throughout the game. The <a href="http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?t=146760" target="_blank">Gifted Commander advantage</a> worked very well for my purposes: each of the PC commanders has preferred strategies and a different approach to command, and will sometimes do possibly subpar things in pursuit of those bonuses. And the Misfortunes of War rules demonstrated that there is some risk to acting aggressively heroic all the time.<br />
<br />
Another thing that went well but didn't show up in the write-up was having the different orc commanders have different skills. Captain Erigash had Strategy-9, while Captain Krauk had Strategy-13, so when the PCs knew they were fighting Erigash again, they were willing to try riskier strategies because the odds were in their favor. As the PCs start fighting even better enemy commanders, ones with Gifted Commander and command perks of their own, I think the game will become even more interesting.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-pz6GuSIxqhc/WIKOp4JrDjI/AAAAAAAABWI/Q09X9zXjM1E4GSdDdvyMRZSiMK2kQiWIgCLcB/s1600/Session2b.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-pz6GuSIxqhc/WIKOp4JrDjI/AAAAAAAABWI/Q09X9zXjM1E4GSdDdvyMRZSiMK2kQiWIgCLcB/s320/Session2b.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Battle of Harbuck, in crude pictures. Margin of success in bright red,<br />
positional bonuses in green, casualties in dark red.<br />
You can see Trahaern's force on the left get ground down on successive rounds.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Finally, for this session, I started drawing rough little maps of each battle. The maps were really crude, but I could write down each side's margin of victory, casualties, and positional bonus gain each round. They were a helpful reminder in play and very useful (along with the chat log of die rolls) in reconstructing the battles afterward.<br />
<h3>
<br />Righting What Was Wrong</h3>
Kevin and I had a brief chat after the game about the power of mages. We batted around some ideas, but the general feeling was that battle mages had too much Troop Strength and way too many class specials. It's possible that mages, as a group, could usefully contribute to artillery support, general ranged attacks, long distance communication and intelligence, and local reconnaissance operations, but our experience was that any given wizard couldn't do all of those things. We also felt that the Resistance needed at least some wizards to help level the playing field.<br />
<br />
The eventual house rule was to split wizards into two troop types: Battle Wizards with TS 3, Artillery, and Fire, and Support Wizards with TS 3, C3I, and Recon. The reduced TS would make wizards less critical, and splitting the roles meant a single wizard unit couldn't provide superiority in four classes. Instead, wizards were more like horse archers or rifle skirmishers: they provided a couple of class superiorities in a compact package, but they weren't game changers that everyone had to have.<br />
<br />
I also reviewed my notes, and realized that the orcs were only supposed to have 2 elements of wizards at Harbuck, not 4. I don't know much difference that would have made, but it certainly contributed to the problem. I also assigned an element of support wizards to Trahaern's force.<br />
<br />
I then reran the Trahaern's portion of the Battle of Harbuck, using the rough maps and the chat logs to recreate the decisions and die rolls from the original. With fewer and weaker wizards and a little arcane backup of his own, Trahaern went from losing the first round to barely winning it. With less casualties and no loss of position from the first round, he went from decisively losing the second round to decisively winning it. Ironically, the change in fortunes didn't change his Misfortunes of War, and he still fell unconscious after the second round, allowing the orcs to flee. But this time, the orcs were dislodged from Harbuck with 80% casualties, not sitting pretty with 20% casualties.<br />
<br />
So I retconned the battle, and left the situation with some dispirited orcish troops huddled in the woods north of Harbuck, while the PCs controlled Harbuck and had a plethora of possible targets.<br />
<br />
<h3>
What Next</h3>
Next week, we're going to do a <a href="http://noschoolgrognard.blogspot.com/2017/01/new-dawn-session-3-wight-men-cant-jump.html" target="_blank">micro-dungeon delve with the other characters</a>. It's not the most elegant way to break up the pacing, but it will be a change of pace and give everyone an opportunity to do some stuff with their other characters. It should be interesting, and since I'm much more experienced with running dungeon delves, hopefully I won't bolix it up the way I did this session.<br />
<br />
<br />Mark Langsdorfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00301984145275679568noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1287550692312955328.post-74788204896129611862017-01-15T10:19:00.002-08:002017-01-15T10:20:00.089-08:00Mass Combat: Battle Experience and Cadres<b>Precis</b>: Some house rules for GURPS Mass Combat, dealing with improving the quality of your troops through battle experience and merging existing experienced units with new hires to improve their experience.<br />
<br />
GURPS Mass Combat is a reasonably comprehensive set of rules for running large scale battles in GURPS. It has rules for different types of troops with different levels of training and equipment, for raising new units and maintaining existing ones, and for fighting all different types of battles. One thing that is mostly missing are rules for improving the quality of existing troops as they gain battlefield experience.<br />
<br />
There are two references to improving units: on 12, under Improvements, "The GM may allow troops to improve in quality... if events justify it," and on p 14, under Disbanding Elements, "For flavor, an element may be converted rather than disbanded." There's no real guidance for deciding when troops should improve in quality, and so I'm writing some house rules for New Dawn to provide some guidance.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-GQcKsV_rpXg/WHu9MH3dgKI/AAAAAAAABVQ/tXDg-7KrkF8oWdxd8-JDd5T-gmugccy_wCLcB/s1600/battle-for-honor-for-glory-for-experience-battle-2668972.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-GQcKsV_rpXg/WHu9MH3dgKI/AAAAAAAABVQ/tXDg-7KrkF8oWdxd8-JDd5T-gmugccy_wCLcB/s320/battle-for-honor-for-glory-for-experience-battle-2668972.png" width="231" /></a></div>
<h3>
<br />Battlefield Experience</h3>
Each time a unit survives a battlefield, it gains 1 experience. It then loses 1 experience if it took more than 40% casualties, half its experience (round the remaining experience down) if it took more than 50% casualties, and all its experience if took more than 75% casualties.<br />
<br />
A unit can be retrained to lock in its experience and improve its troop quality by 1 step after earning 2 experience. Retraining takes one week per $10K of the difference in the raise costs of the improved troop and the unimproved troop. Units with more experience are cheaper to retrain: each extra point of experience reduces the cost by 20%, to a minimum of 0. The retraining time is based on the adjust cost, but can't be reduced below the lower of four weeks or the normal time to raise the unit. A unit cannot move or fight in any battles while it is being retrained, and if it moves or fights in a battle, an entire week of training needs to be redone.<br />
<br />
A very experienced unit can improve its quality by multiple steps at once instead of reducing the cost of training. It takes 8 experience to raise the quality by two steps or 15 to raise it by three.<br />
<br />
<br />
<h3>
Instructors, Cadres, and Replacement Troops</h3>
Troop quality is determined by training and culture and all new troops are raised at the appropriate quality level. If an army has created higher quality troops through battlefield experience, it may not be able to raise fresh units of the same quality to act as replacements. Adding lesser quality troops to a high quality unit generally lowers the quality of the high quality unit, but there are ways to get around it.<br />
<br />
In general, if a unit gets has its size increased by more than 10% and the new troops are of a lower quality than the unit, the unit's quality drops to the average of the two quality levels: adding Average reinforcements to an Elite unit turns the entire unit into a Good unit. Any battle experience is lost.<br />
<br />
<h4>
Cadres</h4>
A unit can absorb more reinforcements if it is given time to absorb them and train them to the unit's standards. A unit can take up to 60% of its size in lower quality reinforcements without losing quality (and indeed, raising the quality of the reinforcements) by taking four weeks to train with them. This training is expensive (pay the cost to raise the quality of the reinforcements normally) but is an easy way to quickly produce a high quality armor. The high quality unit loses all its battle experience and can't absorb any more reinforcements without losing quality until it has gained at least one battle experience.<br />
<br />
Units acting as cadres and absorbing reinforcements cannot move or fight in any battles and must repeat the full week of training if they do move or fight in a battle. The reinforcements are keep their lower quality until the training with the cadre unit is complete.<br />
<br />
<h4>
Instructors</h4>
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-14tOJSw9oA8/WHu7KwLLhGI/AAAAAAAABVE/gGLt_zbIpIUejZlqPH1WU8hsghdLoA6dgCLcB/s1600/drill-sergeant-motivation.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="276" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-14tOJSw9oA8/WHu7KwLLhGI/AAAAAAAABVE/gGLt_zbIpIUejZlqPH1WU8hsghdLoA6dgCLcB/s320/drill-sergeant-motivation.jpg" width="320" /></a>A high quality unit can be used as instructors to improve the quality of newly raised troops. Each element assigned to act as an instructor can train ten elements to its quality. Raising new elements with instructors has the normal cost of raising a new element of the appropriate quality. Instructors don't save money, they just allow veteran units to raise better units than a nation's normal training programs.<br />
<br />
Elements acting as instructors cannot move or fight in any battles and must repeat the full week of training if they do move or fight in a battle. Elements in the process of being raised do not exist for mass combat purposes until their training is complete.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Comments</h3>
This is pretty straightforward and is really just a set of guidelines for things that Mass Combat allows with GM permission. The biggest departure from Mass Combat is clarifying that you can't just raise high quality replacements unless you could have raised those replacements normally.Mark Langsdorfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00301984145275679568noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1287550692312955328.post-55853551782582265532017-01-13T09:55:00.000-08:002017-01-20T14:32:27.731-08:00New Dawn Session 1<b>Precis</b>: In the first session of the <a href="http://noschoolgrognard.blogspot.com/search/label/New%20Dawn" target="_blank">New Dawn</a> campaign, the PCs ambushed an orc patrol, recruited a small army, and had an overwhelming victory in their first Mass Battles combat.<br />
<br />
<h3>
<a href="http://newdawn.wikia.com/wiki/ND/Resistance" target="_blank">Cast of Characters</a></h3>
<ul>
<li><a class="g-profile" href="https://plus.google.com/115373610030621027923" target="_blank">+Uhuk of the Guard</a>'s Hloomawl, a minotaur princeling and mighty warrior.</li>
<li><a class="g-profile" href="https://plus.google.com/116541461100903445865" target="_blank">+Eric Schmidt</a>'s Nesta Bowen, a human master spy with a grudge against the orcs.</li>
<li><a class="g-profile" href="https://plus.google.com/116541461100903445865" target="_blank">+Eric Schmidt</a>'s Trahaern ab Owen, a human master strategist.</li>
<li><a class="g-profile" href="https://plus.google.com/100396225121044993077" target="_blank">+Eilmyn Davidson</a>'s Michael Jones, a Squallite archer.</li>
<li><a class="g-profile" href="https://plus.google.com/100396225121044993077" target="_blank">+Eilmyn Davidson</a>'s Skyler Therris, a human reprobate, warrior, and general.</li>
<li><a class="g-profile" href="https://plus.google.com/115413841072686813753" target="_blank">+Kevin Smyth</a>'s Aisling Mhic Muiris, a Nymph ambassador from the Fae court.</li>
<li><a class="g-profile" href="https://plus.google.com/115413841072686813753" target="_blank">+Kevin Smyth</a>'s Ariana Rees, a human blacksmith and minor saint.</li>
<li>Kiara Schmidt's Greex "Wrongway", a cowardly kobold spymaster.</li>
<li>Kiara Schmidt's Nayla, a supernaturally skilled archer.</li>
<li><i>Finbar Gullvan</i>, the old man of the Resistance </li>
</ul>
Kevin <a href="http://newdawn.wikia.com/wiki/ND/Session_1" target="_blank">recapped this session</a>, too, for a view from a player's side. <br />
<br />
<h3>
Orcish Introductions</h3>
One of my favorite video games is <a href="http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/MiddleEarthShadowOfMordor" target="_blank">Shadows of Mordor</a>. You spend a lot of time fighting common orcs in that game, but at times a orcish captain will join the fray. When you start fighting the captain, there's a sudden cut-scene where the captain taunts you while all the orcs chant his name, and you might see a list of some of the awful and dangerous deeds he's done. I don't have the video or audio skills to do that, but one of things I'm doing with New Dawn is introducing each orcish leader with a little tagline. If the PCs have done any research on him, I'll probably tell them more about the leader but so far it hasn't come up.<br />
<br />
I will almost certainly regret doing this, as coming up with the taglines is hard, but so far it amuses me. Each orc and his tagline will follow the header for the battle that he's in.<br />
<br />
<h3>
An Ambush</h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Sir Brolo - "Greatness comes from humble beginnings" </i></blockquote>
I like to start my games with an action scene, to get things going immediately. In this case, the Resistance of Engenstut County - essentially the PCs plus some NPC spear-throwers - were ambushing a patrol of orcs. The ambush had many purposes: acquire some metal weapons and armor instead of stone and leather; demonstrate to the countryside that the Resistance had what it took to defeat orcs; commit a provocation that would encourage the orcs to leave their stronghold. The Resistance were set up on either side of a steep-sided path through two hills, with the intention of attacking the orcs when their mounted leader made it into a bend in the pass. The orcs were on a routine patrol that they weren't taking seriously, with almost none of them wearing their helmets and the infantry not wearing their arm armor or gauntlets. This turned out to be significant.<br />
<br />
The PCs' forces were strung out on either side of the path, and not set up super well. They had a nice ambush with their better archers covering the bend, but the melee fighters were set up too far up the pass. They had some of their melee fighters close to the mouth of the pass, but ironically those fighters were too close to the action and easy to spot.<br />
<br />
As it turned out, the ambush almost failed when the orc leader spotted Aisling. People tensed up, but trusted the nymph to talk her way out of it, which she did. She Fast-Talked the orcs with a story about a bunch of kobolds attacking her and claimed the kobolds were just around the bend. The orcs formed up, but foolishly neglected to put on their helmets (overconfidence was a crippling disadvantage for the orcs) and charged up the pass. It was possibly something of a net loss for the PCs, since though the orcs were still surprised by the subsequent ambush, they were much less surprised and responded quicker.<br />
<br />
At any rate, as the orc knight made it around the bend, Nayla put an arrow in his face. Even with HP 17 and HT 12, he still took a major wound and fell off his horse, unconscious. The rest of the orcs were surprised by this turn of events (IQ 9 and no Combat Reflexes) and things just degenerated for them from there. Ariana and Aisling slipped to the back of the orcish column and began clobbering the goblin wolf-rider archers from behind while Nesta, Traeharn, Hloomawl, Skyler, and Greex frantically repositioned themselves closer to the orcish infantry. Michael got off some shots of varying effectiveness: I think he nailed one orc in the face, but another shot mostly bowed off a DR7 steel breastplate. Nayla was much more effective, using her Guided Shot and Scattershot imbuments to telling effect: her first blast of shrapnel got a lucky cripple on one of the orc infantry's hands, effectively taking him out of the fight, and she put a shot into one of the wolves' face at 30 yards, dropping him and preventing the goblins from fleeing the fight.<br />
<br />
Arianna caught a lot of attention from the orcs for a bit: a wolf jumped her but she blocked and retreated, then a goblin just missed her with a bow, and finally she took a crossbow bolt that penetrated her shield and heavy leather gloves to stick into her arm. She survived and continued to lay about on the orcs, but even a couple of hard hits to the face weren't always enough to knock the orcs down.<br />
<br />
Back at the front of the column, Hloomawl closed the distance with a horn slam. The orc in question blocked with his shield, but Hloomawl penetrated the shield and the unarmored arm, knocking him down. Hloomawl's horns also got <i>stuck</i>, leading to the amusing image of 9' minotaur, bent over double at the waist, muttering, "Don't worry, I got this," as he tried to unstick himself. Immediately behind him, Skyler ran up and threw a hand axe into the back of an orc's skull, dropping him and rendering the orcs' attempts to fight back to back futile.<br />
<br />
On the next round, Hloomawl freed his horns by trying to wrench the orc's arm off. He did a pretty good job, but not quite enough to cripple the orc. The PCs were quite impressed with the hardiness of the orcs. Skyler stepped forward and brained the orc with his barbed wire bat, Lucille.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-O-RRuWT8kW8/WHkSYwzUA-I/AAAAAAAABUs/E7kWJ_cmmtYiY-OKDoODy76B5YqJ07H6wCLcB/s1600/ND_Session1a.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="207" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-O-RRuWT8kW8/WHkSYwzUA-I/AAAAAAAABUs/E7kWJ_cmmtYiY-OKDoODy76B5YqJ07H6wCLcB/s400/ND_Session1a.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Skyler and Hloomawl beat down the orcish infantry as Arianna and Aisling cut<br />
off their retreat and Nayla, Michael, and the generic Resistance force rain down missiles.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
The combat pretty much petered out at this point, with the surviving goblins surrendering. Two of the orcs were still conscious, but both were wounded and on their backs with Skyler, Hloomawl, and Arianna closing in while Michael and Nayla provided covering fire.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Recruitment</h3>
At this point, the PCs split into two groups. Hloomawl, Traehern, Skyler, Aisling, and Greex went off to recruit an army, while the other PCs went off to do something else. The logic was that whoever did the recruiting would also have to fight in the first battle, so the PCs stacked that team with their best leaders and persuaders.<br />
<br />
My mechanic for recruiting was pretty simple: it took 3 hours to give a rousing speech in a village square, and success on a contest of Public Speaking versus average peasant Will resulted in 1 + MoS elements of levy medium infantry showing up. Anyone could use an Influence skill to give a complementary bonus, or people could work the crowd with an Influence skill and recruit 1 element of levy medium infantry +1 per 2 MoS. I mostly set it up that way because Aisling's Public Speaking skill is unreal and if the only option had been to perform complementary work with her, it would have been the Aisling and her backup band show. As it was, each of the PCs got their own chance to recruit: Greex rallied some kobolds, Skyler won some drinking contests, Hloomawl convinced people they could stand behind him and watch him kill orcs, and Trahaern made some appeals to patriotism. Aisling actually gave a reasonably ineffective speech (she's Intolerant of loggers, and the village of Trones is a logging community) but an ineffective speech by a nymph is still a massive success. Within a few hours, the PCs had recruited most of the people they could in Trones. I offered to let them go at it again, at -4 on all rolls, but they chose to move to another village and try again. Rolls were even better there, and since it was a smaller village, they recruited everyone they could ("except for the Mayor, the bitter drunk, and three guys that absolutely needed to stay behind to run businesses" as we eventually decided).<br />
<br />
That was the first day after the battle. They could have spent another day recruiting, but they decided to spend it organizing their forces since they had 30 elements of Medium Infantry (with Poor equipment and Poor quality). I told them they could set up as much of their forces as they liked as Light Infantry (again, Poor/Poor) or a quarter of them as Pikemen in the form of a bunch of guys holding sharpened tree branches (Poor/Inferior quality). They had could have 1 Unit of Poor/Poor Bowmen using some of the captured orc weapons and the Resistance stockpile. As a houserule, I'd already said that a PC attached to an element could raise the troop quality for a single battle with a Leadership roll. Aisling took charge of the Resistance's lone light artillery (dubbed "Finbar's Folly" but it actually turned out pretty useful), Skyler led the Bowmen element, and Hloomawl had a bodyguard of Pikemen. Greex didn't have any Leadership skills and Trahaern was too busy commanding the overall battle. They had 7 elements of Pikemen, 8 or so elements of Light Infantry, and a mass of Medium Infantry.<br />
<br />
<h3>
The Battle of Trones</h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Captain Hugrash - "He's bad, and he's an ass, but is he a bad-ass?" </i><br />
<i>Lieutenant Bruurt - "A calm head can still be lost in a disasater"</i></blockquote>
<br />
On the morning of the third day, some of the Resistance scouts put the heads of the orc patrol up on stakes in view of the orc stronghold. Captain Hugrash ordered his troops to armor up and prepared to sally forth to crush the insolent humans.<br />
<br />
I had something of a personality in mind for Hugrash. He's a minor orc commander of an inferior regiment that was left behind to guard the countryside when the rest of the orcish forces left to fight the battle at the capitol. He's arrogant and not particularly skilled (Intelligence Analysis-8, Tactics-11, Leadership-12, Overconfidence 9 or less, no useful mass combat Perks or Advantages). His forces, generally a collection of Average troops with Good equipment, were penalized by being in Low Supply for reasons of economy and had half the TS they normally would.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-GQxodqbirq4/WHkSvvB-ftI/AAAAAAAABUw/d4PCBIHfn7MlS3UmGCH9RznZcLmugOvfACLcB/s1600/ND_Session1b.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-GQxodqbirq4/WHkSvvB-ftI/AAAAAAAABUw/d4PCBIHfn7MlS3UmGCH9RznZcLmugOvfACLcB/s320/ND_Session1b.png" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Trones campaign theater, showing the<br />
titular village, the orc stronghold, the town<br />
of Harbuck, and the orc fortress of Swartun.</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
This was everyone's first experience with GURPS Mass Combat, and justifying my purchase of Mass Combat is the point of the campaign, so we went through the whole deal. First step was the Reconnaissance Contest. The PC's had a 2:1 edge in Recon Strength (mostly through overwhelming numbers) and had friendly locals. Kiara rolled for Greex and succeeded by 12. Hugrash, on the other hand, had unfriendly locals and wasn't taking basic route security options, so he was rolling at -6 and failed by 5 or so. Long story short, the Resistance trivially ambushed the orcs.<br />
<br />
In the rest of the campaign, each PC commander will have their own fronts and there will be multiple mass combats going on at once, but for the first one, I just wanted to get through the rules with as little confusion as possible. Trahaern took command, and put his Gifted Commander: Slow and Steady advantage to best use by ordering a Deliberate Attack. The orcs, ambushed, were forced to Rally. The humans had a troop strength advantage, but the orcs had better class specials: the human pikes and artillery neutralized or countered their cavalry and (magic) artillery, but they still had more archers for a Fire bonus and mages for C3I bonus. Numbers and skill triumph over confusion, and the Resistance won the first round by 15 or so, inflicting 35% casualties on the orcs and gaining a superior position.<br />
<br />
In the second round, Trahaern moved for a double envelopment (an Indirect Attack to take some advantage of his Gifted Commander: Cunning Commander advantage, though it conflicts some with being Slow and Sure) while the orcs went for a general attack. Trahaern gambled big, but won big with something like +17 on the initial contest and double that after his Indirect Attack, for another 40% casualties and more position bonuses. Captain Hugrash had taken injuries in the first round (Misfortunes of War are likely if you risk big and lose big) which had been described as Hloomawl getting close enough to beat on him a bit in a Significant Action. Hugrash took injuries again this round, as Skyler beat him unconscious in another Significant Action.<br />
<br />
Orcish Lieutenant Bruurt stepped up, but the orcish position was untenable. He correctly predicted that Trahaern was going to order an All-Out Attack, and surprised Trahaern by ordering a Full Retreat, but Bruurt's net success by 1 was not sufficient to keep the orcs from being overrun by the humans who succeeded by 12 or so. Trahaern's roll was pretty bad this round, but +8 in positional bonuses and no casualties will make up for some bad rolls. The orcs took another 30% casualties, accumulating at 110%, and were wiped out.<br />
<br />
We did some of the post battle accounting and ended the session on a high note. 55 of the orcs were killed on the field of battle, with another 34 successfully fleeing. Most of those survivors would be killed by Resistance sympathizers among the peasantry, but a handful (mostly goblin wolf-riders and a knight or two) would survive the 40 mile journey to the orc fortress of Swartun. Meanwhile, the Resistance got $240,000 in loot, including a couple of suits of Fine plate harness from the orcish officers.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Review of Play</h3>
So this session started out a little slow. 5 players, most with 2 PCs, a horde of allied NPCs that the GM had to run, and a mass of enemies makes for a long battle. That was somewhat helped by a lot of the orcs being stunned, either from surprise or via damage, and not doing much. I was a little sad about that: I wanted an orc or two to recover and rampage through the PC's lines, demonstrating just how dangerous an orc was. Ariana took some hits, but there was never anything really impressive. Still, the awful endurance of the orcs who sometimes took multiple hits to the face without stopping did impress the PCs.<br />
<br />
All in all, the starting ambush took two and half hours to play through. That didn't leave much time for the recruitment and mass combat, but it did come in just under the clock so no harm dead. I had an optional encounter in my notes, where the orcs would send out a second patrol and the PCs would ambush it again, but this time with they'd have their captured orcish metal weapons and armor. I didn't run that, because the initial ambush was such a success that there wouldn't have been much contrast in the second, and because it would have taken up too much time. Oh, well.<br />
<br />
As another minor note on tactics, I expected the PCs to station Hloomawl much closer to the mouth of the pass, and have him enter the fight by jumping off the hillside and landing on an orc's shoulders. It would have been amazing, and I actually looked up the rules for it. But Uhuk wasn't feeling so well and didn't think of that.<br />
<br />
The recruiting section went well. I was surprised that the PC's stopped early, but they were right that they had sufficient forces.<br />
<br />
The battle actually went very smoothly. There were a few rules look-ups and a couple of minor mishaps (Trahaern ordered a Deliberate Defense on the first round, which isn't legal for ambushers, but it wouldn't have made a difference in the outcome) but things mostly went pretty well. I'm going to need to experiment more with maptools to see if I can make tracking some things easier, as there was a little confusion about modifiers at various points. Still, it went well, and it was a massive victory for the PCs at the very end of the session, so things ended on a high note.<br />
<br />
Much like I <a href="http://noschoolgrognard.blogspot.com/2017/01/new-dawn-anticipation.html" target="_blank">anticipated yesterday</a>, the PCs are already becoming pretty potent. They have a lot of money and a fair amount of high quality armor. Skyler potentially has a magic weapon. Common orcs are still going to be a threat, but if everyone has DR7 or DR8 armor then fights are going to have a differnt quality than if only one side is wearing DR2 leather.<br />
<br />
<h3>
What Next?</h3>
The Resistance has a lot of things to do, and hopefully people will decide what do to do over email. They'd probably do best to continue the current military campaign with their current forces, and t<a href="http://noschoolgrognard.blogspot.com/2017/01/new-dawn-session-2.html" target="_blank">ry to overrun the the undersupplied and spread out Orc garrison companies while they can</a>. Sooner or later the orcs are going to start retraining for war and consolidating their forces. The orcs can theoretically field over 10,000 troops in Hanist alone, so a force of 300 militia is not going to cut it. The PCs will need to balance liberating the countryside with recruiting new troops and sending old troops back to re-equipped and retrained with looted weapons.<br />
<br />
That's on the Mass Combat side. This game is also supposed to involve some delving and diplomacy. Currently, there's not a lot of good options for that, but I'll try to think of something and present it. Delving may not show up until the fourth or fifth session, though.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Mark Langsdorfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00301984145275679568noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1287550692312955328.post-36747679386707523162017-01-12T09:17:00.000-08:002017-01-12T10:35:39.273-08:00New Dawn: Anticipation<b>Precis</b>: I'm starting my new mass battles fantasy game tonight and reflecting on some decisions and campaign features while I wait.<br />
<br />
I'm running the first session of <a href="http://noschoolgrognard.blogspot.com/2016/11/new-dawn-mass-battles-campaign-concept.html" target="_blank">New Dawn</a> tonight. As usual, I'm excited about the start of a new game but can't do much about it until the game actually starts. So I'll post some thoughts about it.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Zero to Hero in 1.4 seconds</h3>
I don't normally like Zero to Hero style games. They're an RPG convention, for reasons good and bad, but I prefer starting with more experienced heroes that are comparatively static. On the player side, I like playing the character I want to play at the start of the game, not having to wait for several sessions for the character to grow into my desired concept. On the GM side, static characters from the start of the game make it easier to plot challenges since the character abilities don't change. Similarly, record keeping is easier because the characters don't change much.<br />
<br />
New Dawn is a <a href="http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TrainingMontage?from=Main.ZeroToHero" target="_blank">Zero to Hero</a> game. But it's a Zero to Hero game with a turbo-supercharger and nitrous oxide. The first fight of the first session pits the PCs wearing leather armor and wielding stone weapons against an orc patrol in heavy plate armor with good steel weapons. I expect it will be a brutal fight, and only the facts that the PCs have advantage in numbers and skill and set up an ambush will allow them to triumph. But after that first fight, the PCs will have heavy plate armor and good steel weapons. Within short order - hopefully at the end of the first session or the second at the latest - they'll be lords of a collection of little villages. And by the third or fourth session, they'll start getting fine weapons and armor as they become the lords of county and collecting the tax income from 30000 people. It's a very fast ramp up.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Your Money Is Meaningless</h3>
One of the odd consequences of a military game is that money is somewhat meaningless on a personal scale. The cost of outfitting a single squad of standard Medium Infantry - the backbone of the armies - is $30K, which normally in Dungeon Fantasy is the kind of money you find at the end of a fairly successful delve. The PCs can expect to outfit hundreds, if not thousands, of Medium Infantry squads over the course of the game. One less Medium Infantry squad isn't going to effect the outcome of the mid-game battles, but it's enough money to give a single PC some very high quality gear. Similarly, the cost of buying a single war elephant is $400K, which buys a <a href="http://noschoolgrognard.blogspot.com/2014/05/better-fantasy-armor-ultimate-armors.html" target="_blank">full set of very high end armor</a>. It wouldn't be unreasonable for the PCs to get forty war elephants (Hannibal had that many during the Punic Wars), or to get 30 or so and have everyone wearing the best armor money can buy.<br />
<br />
As part of the game is supposed to include Dungeon Fantasy style delving, this is going to be a weird dynamic. The vast wealth from totally looting a typical dungeon isn't enough to buy a the horses and armor for a squadron of heavy cavalry, and delving isn't as profitable as sitting around for a couple of months and letting the tax money roll in. There might be other reasons to delve, such as finding lost forgotten magics or acquiring military units that can't be found any other way, but money isn't a motivator.<br />
<br />
I could come up with some kind of complicated rule that limited how much tax money the PCs could spend on themselves, but I'd rather embrace the dynamic. It's part of the Zero to Hero in 1.4 seconds concept: the PCs aren't going to spend much time grubbing for gear.<br />
<br />
<br />
<h3>
Troupe Style Play</h3>
I originally wanted to have a single character per player, but my players ganged up on me and decided they wanted two characters apiece. That way, everyone could get the role they wanted, even with a lot of overlap in roles. Each player can only have one active character at a time, in general, though that rule is going to be relaxed at times.<br />
<br />
Another element of troupe style play is bit parts for players. I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this, but there are going times when one or two PCs are the focus of the action and rather than leave all the other players with nothing to do, they're going to get bit parts. The most obvious instance of this will be Detailed Actions in the Mass Combat minigame, when a single PC gets to fight a little melee with the assistance of his bodyguards or whatever, but I expect I'll do the same when one of the spies needs to infiltrate a castle and non-stealthy PCs need to be left behind. People without characters appropriate for infiltration will get to play some sneaky bit parts. Who knows? If a bit part gets enough screen time, it might become a low point value PC permanently.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Disadvantages That Bite</h3>
Another thing that's come up while preparing for the game is that there a lot of disadvantages that are normally free points but that, in the context of a military game, are much more likely to hurt. Several people took Pacifism: Cannot Harm Innocents, which in my Dungeon Fantasy games is normally such a weak disadvantage that it should really be a quirk. It just doesn't come up much. In a military game, it has teeth: you have to avoid collateral damage, it's hard to besiege a town (starving innocent town folk is definitely forbidden), and even starting a war with a neutral party in order to get access to a needed resource isn't allowed. I like the change, but I was surprised by the number of PCs that took Pacifism: Cannot Harm Innocents and I'm curious how it will work out in play. Soldier's Code of Honor, another disadvantage that several PCs, has similar restrictions.<br />
<br />
<h3>
A Multinational Approach</h3>
I swear I didn't suggest this or really do much to encourage it, but as it worked out, the PCs come from a multitude of races and nations that, while generally agreeing to defeat the evil Empire, have their own agendas. This obviously sets up some plot hooks down the road and meshes with some of my hidden plans, but wasn't planned by me. Currently, the group includes a fae, some humans, a kobold, a minotaur, and a squallite (a kind of wood-elf thing), with possibly one more race in <a class="g-profile" href="https://plus.google.com/115373610030621027923" target="_blank">+Uhuk of the Guard</a>'s second character.<br />
<br />
I'm somewhat surprised that the "normal" non-human races aren't present. There aren't any dwarves, elves, or halflings, though minotaur, fae, and kobold are all conceptually similar. That might just be a side effect of the kind of people I game with. It simplified some things for me, though, in terms of long term campaign planning. <br />
<br />
<h3>
Cast of Characters</h3>
The full list of characters is on the wiki, but here's a quick summary:<br />
Hloomawl: <a class="g-profile" href="https://plus.google.com/115373610030621027923" target="_blank">+Uhuk of the Guard</a>'s minotaur champion/herald.<br />
Nesta: <a class="g-profile" href="https://plus.google.com/116541461100903445865" target="_blank">+Eric Schmidt</a>'s human spymaster/thief.<br />
Trahaern: <a class="g-profile" href="https://plus.google.com/116541461100903445865" target="_blank">+Eric Schmidt</a>'s human general/trapper.<br />
Michael: <a class="g-profile" href="https://plus.google.com/100396225121044993077" target="_blank">+Eilmyn Davidson</a>'s squallite scout.<br />
Skyler: <a class="g-profile" href="https://plus.google.com/100396225121044993077" target="_blank">+Eilmyn Davidson</a>'s human champion/war captain.<br />
Aisling: <a class="g-profile" href="https://plus.google.com/115413841072686813753" target="_blank">+Kevin Smyth</a>'s fae nymph ambassador/war captain.<br />
Ariana: <a class="g-profile" href="https://plus.google.com/115413841072686813753" target="_blank">+Kevin Smyth</a>'s human priest.<br />
Greex: Kiara's kobold spymaster/thief.<br />
Nayla: Kiara's human imbued scout.<br />
<br />
Greex was original one of Kevin's concepts, but Kiara liked the idea and took the character. Uhuk is supposedly making a sorcerer but I haven't seen anything yet.<br />
<br />
It's a pretty good mix. I'm a little sad that there are two spymaster/thief characters, but it's a reasonable combination so I can't really blame people. I also wish there were more spellcaster types, but neither Divine Favor nor Sorcery are particularly effective with only 50 points to start so I can't blame people for skipping those roles.<br />
<br />
I'm excited, and really looking forward to tonight's session.<br />
<br />
<br />Mark Langsdorfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00301984145275679568noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1287550692312955328.post-3947935272855442602017-01-10T11:56:00.002-08:002017-01-10T11:57:46.282-08:00Enchantment Through DeedsSo the <a href="http://noschoolgrognard.blogspot.com/search/label/New%20Dawn" target="_blank">New Dawn</a> campaign starts Thursday. It's going to have a couple of new players, and that accidentally exposed some issues with GURPS Enchantment that bothered me.<br />
<br />
<h3>
The Benefits and Problems of Named Possessions</h3>
GURPS Fantasy came up with the idea of Named Possessions: for the cost of a Perk, one of your PC's Signature Items could freely earn enchantments as the PC earned CP. In a long-running campaign, this is an amazing perk: 50 CP is worth 750 energy points of enchantments, which is 2-3 decent enchantments. Conceptually, it's neat that as your PC grows from zero to hero, his favorite weapon or armor grows with him.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-yhdbHcPsiGc/UoVm1pGVbTI/AAAAAAAAASU/GW0BfylooTIq956wWssl7VwWEPyWBvRvgCPcB/s1600/6625838-powerful-heavy-fighter-with-burning-sword.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-yhdbHcPsiGc/UoVm1pGVbTI/AAAAAAAAASU/GW0BfylooTIq956wWssl7VwWEPyWBvRvgCPcB/s320/6625838-powerful-heavy-fighter-with-burning-sword.jpg" width="194" /></a>Named Possessions have a lot of problems. First off, the equipment needs to be Fine and Signature Gear, which means it's easier to have Named Hand Axes ($500 and 1 CP for Signature Gear in most Fantasy games) than Named Two-Handed Swords ($3600 and 10 CP for Signature Gear in most Fantasy games) and nearly impossible to have Named armor (because Fine armor starts at $2000 and goes up quickly). Second, a PC gets the most benefit from having a Named Possession at the game - if a new player starts to admire a more experienced player's Named Possession 10 sessions in and buys the Perk then, the new player's Named Possession has 375 energy at the time the experienced player's has 3750. Finally, Named Possessions discourage upgrading your weapon: if you have 3000 energy of free enchantment's on your named Balanced Longbow, then getting a Fine Balanced Elven Composite Bow as a reward from the Faerie princess might be a step backwards because you lose all those enchantments.<br />
<br />
On balance, Named Possessions are probably more trouble than they're worth. But the concept is neat, doubly so because it means that a non-magical fighting type can get a powerful magical weapon without having to be nice to a wizard so the wizard will enchant it for him. I like the idea that non-magical fighter types can get by without wizards, so I want to preserve that concept. The following rules try to preserve the good parts of Named Possessions and reduce the bad parts.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Enchantment Through Deeds</h3>
Each PC has several pools of Deed Points that normally start at 0 (in a high power game, the GM might start them at some other level). Deed Points stay with a PC and can be applied as CP to buy Advantages, Perks, and Skills for specific pieces of equipment. After Deed Points have been applied to a specific piece of equipment, they stay with that equipment but are still available (subject to some restrictions) for applying to other pieces of equipment.<br />
<br />
<h4>
Deed Pools</h4>
Normally, a PC has three Deed Pools: Weapons, Armor, and Miscellaneous.<br />
<br />
<h4>
Earning Deed Points</h4>
There are lots of ways to earn Deed Points. The general rule is to do stuff, and then to do awesome stuff on top of that:<br />
<ul>
<li>A PC earns 3 Deed Points (1 Weapon, 1 Armor, and one that can be applied to any pool) for every significant fight they're in.</li>
<li>A PC earns Deed Points for doing significant non-combat activities (sneaking into a fortress to open the gates, negotiating an alliance with the minotaurs, finding the Lost Orb of Phantasma). The GM will specify the amount and which pools the Deed Points apply to.</li>
<li>A PC earns a Weapon Deed Point for defeating a foe in a memorable manner (massive damage, an arrow to the eye, a really impressive critical hit, picking up the foe and throwing them out a window).</li>
<li>A PC earns a Deed Point for surviving an impressive set of attacks (Actively Defending against 4 or more skilled foes in a single turn, dodging multitple lows from a giant that can disable the PC in a single hit)</li>
<li>In Mass Combat, a PC earns a Deed point for being involved in the battle, and another for any Significant Actions by the PC. If the Significant Actions don't break into a Detailed Action, the PC earns another 3 Deed Points.</li>
</ul>
<br />
<h4>
Spending Deed Points</h4>
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-vqnWv19gYdk/Un6nu30m3LI/AAAAAAAAAQ8/X7hRtF5KF2woHZETyd1wvLbWXFppumAZQCPcB/s1600/Magic%2Bthe%2BGathering%2BDuels%2Bof%2Bthe%2BPlaneswalkers%2Bsci%2Bfi%2Bfantasy%2Bcostume%2Bdesign%2Bcharacters%2Barmor%2Boutfit%2Bcosplay%2Bmmorpg%2Bvideo%2Bgame.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="273" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-vqnWv19gYdk/Un6nu30m3LI/AAAAAAAAAQ8/X7hRtF5KF2woHZETyd1wvLbWXFppumAZQCPcB/s320/Magic%2Bthe%2BGathering%2BDuels%2Bof%2Bthe%2BPlaneswalkers%2Bsci%2Bfi%2Bfantasy%2Bcostume%2Bdesign%2Bcharacters%2Barmor%2Boutfit%2Bcosplay%2Bmmorpg%2Bvideo%2Bgame.jpg" width="320" /></a>Deed Points can be spent to enhance equipment, including the PC's body, by buying Advantages, Perks, and Skills. Once spent, Deed Points cannot be changed.<br />
<ul>
<li>Weapon Deed Points can be spent freely between the PC's equipment and the PC's body.</li>
<li>No more half the Deed Points in the Armor and Miscellaneous pools can be spent on the PC's body.</li>
</ul>
<br />
No Advantage, Perk, or Skill comes into effect until the PC has spent at least 10 Deed Points on that piece of equipment. Weapon, Armor, and Miscellaneous Deed Points applied to the body count separately for activation purposes.<br />
<br />
Each Deed Point buys 1 CP worth of Advantages, Perks, or Skills.<br />
<ul>
<li>Extra skill for equipment costs a flat 4 points per level of bonus and only applies when using that piece of equipment.</li>
<li>Imbuement skills can be bought for the item, and in addition to the Imbuement advantage, the individual Imbuement skills cost 4 points for level 12 and 4 points for each additional level. Item Imbuement's are always independent of the user's abilities, though the user has to pay the Fatigue costs unless the item has an Energy Reserve.</li>
</ul>
<h4>
Changing Equipment</h4>
The first time a piece of Deeded Equipment is passed on to someone else (voluntarily or involuntarily), it immediately loses 10 Deed Points worth of enhancements. If that leaves it with less than 10 Deed Points, it no longer has any active Enhancements. Killing the owned of a Deeded item does not strip the item of existing Deed Points, beyond losing the usual 10. If the original owner of a Deeded Item recovers it, it immediately recovers the lost 10 Deed Points and the owner may spend any additional earned Deed Points on it.<br />
<br />
If a PC picks up a new piece of equipment, they may immediately use any active Deed enhancements. After earning another 5 Deed Points with that piece of equipment, the PC may spend their full Deed pool on the new equipment.<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Example</i>: John has 20 Deed Points in his sword. He fights the Sanguine Count, who has 45 Deed Points in its spear. John claims the spear as his new weapon and can use its 35 Deed Points, and gives his sword to his squire, who can use its 10 Deed Points. After John earns 5 more Deed Points with the spear, he can spend all 25 of his Weapon Deed points on it. If after earning another 10 Deed Points with the spear, he loses it to a rust monster and has to start again with an ax, he'll have to earn 5 more Deed Points before enhancing the ax with his 40 Weapon Deed points. If his squire dies and he gets his original sword back, the sword goes back to having 20 Deed Points and John can spend another 20 Deed Points on it (he has earned 20 Weapon Deed Points since giving up the Sword).</blockquote>
<br />
<h4>
Upgrading Equipment</h4>
Upgrading equipment (by making it Balanced, Fine, or whatever) does not change the amount of Deed Points in the equipment. Armor with Deed Points can be upgraded piecemeal, as long as at least 55% of the armor coverage stays the same and 5 Armor Deed Points are earned and applied between upgrades.<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Example</i>: John's career starts with him wearing a mail shirt, leather pants, and a pot helm. After earning 10 Armor Deed Points, his armor is magical. John replaces the leather pants with plate greaves. The enhancement stays. After earning 5 more Armor Deed Points, John replaces the pot helm with an Orichalcum helm and the enchantment stays. He then also replaces the mail shirt with plate harness, but since that changes more than 45% of the coverage, the enchantment moves with the shirt and his new plate harness is not enhanced (and the mail shirt loses 10 Deed Points and also becomes unenhanced). If John then earns another 10 Armor Deed Points, he can spend all 20 Armor Deed Points on his plate harness.</blockquote>
<br />
<h4>
Sample Items</h4>
<ul>
<li>Bracers of Force (12 Deed Points) - These DR 6 metal arm guards project a minor forcefield, protecting the wearer from harm. DR +2 (Force Field +20%) [12]. 7 lbs. </li>
<li>Hammer of the Forge God (50 Deed Points) - This minor artifact destroys inanimate objects and makes the wielder a better smith. Smithing Talent +4 [20], Crushing Innate Attack 20 (Melee Reach 1 No Parry Follow-up -30%; Accessibility: Inanimate Objects Only -40) [30]. Treat as a Fine Mace in melee combat. 5 lbs.</li>
<li>Ever-Distant Bow (36 Deed Points) - This bow shoots at long distances incredibly well, though it can be very fatiguing to use. Imbue 2 (2 skills only -60%) [8], Imbuement Talent 2 [10], Guided Weapon (Bow)-14 [4], Far-Shot (Bow)-14 [4], Energy Reserve 4 [12].</li>
</ul>
<br />
<br />
<h4>
Comments</h4>
I've tried to make this system as simple as possible, but I'm not sure I've succeeded. My concerns are:<br />
<ul>
<li>Record keeping for keeping track of the Deed Points available to the PC and the Deed Points invested in an item (especially for items that have had multiple owners). Hopefully limited the new owner charge to a 1 time deal will minimize this.</li>
<li>Keeping track of when PCs earn Deed Points. It's mostly Rule of Cool plus some simple static guidelines, so hopefully everyone will keep track, but I suspect people will forget. I don't have a good solution for this.</li>
<li>Whining about whether something counts as Cool enough to earn a Deed point is potentially a problem. My theory is it that it has to be memorable: it's not enough to get a critical hit, it's got to be a critical hit to the head that takes someone out or something like that</li>
<li>Favoritism towards certain builds. Hulking warriors and eagle-eyed elf scouts are much more likely to get one shot kills than weedy kobold thieves. To some extent, the requirement that actions be memorable will mitigate against this: the elf's 3rd eyeshot in the same fight isn't memorable, while the one time the thief backstabbed that guy to the neck is memorable. </li>
<li>Power level: things could get out of hand quick, with everyone earning 10+ Deed Points per session and getting new and wonderful items regularly while handing off reasonably potent stuff to their allies. If it looks like people are trying to game the system to an unreasonable extent by changing to identical equipment to power it up and pass it on to allies, then I'll have to take steps but I hope/expect it won't be a problem.</li>
</ul>
Mark Langsdorfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00301984145275679568noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1287550692312955328.post-37458892341110820252016-12-08T12:07:00.001-08:002017-02-06T09:53:01.383-08:00Better Fantasy Armor / Easier Armor Design: Better Coverage TableAs part of some work for another project, I went back and looked at the armor coverage table from Better Fantasy Armor. And then I compared it to some other coverage tables, including the "Rule of 9s" that estimates skin surface area for medical patients: (9% in the head, 9% in each arm, 18% in each leg, and the remaining 36% in the torso). Here's what I got:<br />
<br />
<table border="1" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="1">
<tbody>
<tr><td><b>Location</b></td><td style="text-align: center;"><b>Rule of 9</b></td><td style="text-align: center;"><b>Low-Tech</b></td><td style="text-align: center;"><b>BFA</b></td></tr>
<tr><td>Head</td><td style="text-align: center;">9%</td><td style="text-align: center;">11%</td><td style="text-align: center;">8%</td></tr>
<tr><td>Arms</td><td style="text-align: center;">18%</td><td style="text-align: center;">16%</td><td style="text-align: center;">20%</td></tr>
<tr><td>Hands</td><td style="text-align: center;"></td><td style="text-align: center;">3%</td><td style="text-align: center;">6%</td></tr>
<tr><td>Torso</td><td style="text-align: center;">36%</td><td style="text-align: center;">33%</td><td style="text-align: center;">32%</td></tr>
<tr><td>Legs</td><td style="text-align: center;">36%</td><td style="text-align: center;">33%</td><td style="text-align: center;">24%</td></tr>
<tr><td>Feet</td><td style="text-align: center;"></td><td style="text-align: center;">3%</td><td style="text-align: center;">10%</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
There's a couple of noticeable points here. First, there's some room for fudging in all of these tables, depending on where exactly you drawn the line: do the feet or the legs cover the ankle bones? Are the shoulders part of the arm or the torso? Second, the Low-Tech table matches the Rule of 9 fairly well if you add the extremities to the limbs and assume the Rule of 9 includes the neck in the torso but Low-Tech includes it in the head. Third, it should be immediately obvious that the amount of material required to cover a person's hands is a lot less than the amount required to cover their feet. Finally, the BFA table has way too much coverage in the arms and hands and not quite enough in the head and neck. The legs and feet are a little off, but not too bad.<br />
<br />
With all that in mind, I'm proposing the following table for the next revision of Better Fantasy Armor and Easier Armor Design:<br />
<br />
<table border="1" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="1">
<tbody>
<tr><td><i><b>Location</b></i></td><td style="text-align: center;"><i><b>Cost/Weight</b></i></td><td style="text-align: center;"><i><b>Hit Location</b></i></td><td><i><b>Notes</b></i></td><td><i><b>Comments</b></i></td></tr>
<tr><td>Head</td><td style="text-align: center;">12%</td><td style="text-align: center;">3-5, 17-18</td><td><br /></td><td><br /></td></tr>
<tr><td> <i>Skull</i></td><td style="text-align: center;">(6%)</td><td style="text-align: center;">3-4</td><td></td><td>Forehead and back of the head to the nape of the neck</td></tr>
<tr><td><i> Face</i></td><td style="text-align: center;">(3%)</td><td style="text-align: center;">5</td><td><br /></td><td>Front of the face only. Sublocations are 0.5% each.</td></tr>
<tr><td><i> Neck</i></td><td style="text-align: center;">(3%)</td><td style="text-align: center;">17-18</td><td><br /></td><td><br /></td></tr>
<tr><td>Arms</td><td style="text-align: center;">16%</td><td style="text-align: center;">8, 12</td><td></td><td><br /></td></tr>
<tr><td><i> Shoulders</i></td><td style="text-align: center;">(4%)</td><td style="text-align: center;">8, 12*</td><td>Roll 1d; on a 1-2 this location is hit</td><td><br /></td></tr>
<tr><td><i> Upper Arms</i></td><td style="text-align: center;">(4%)</td><td style="text-align: center;">8, 12*</td><td>Roll 1d; on a 3 this location is hit</td><td><br /></td></tr>
<tr><td><i> Elbows</i></td><td style="text-align: center;">(4%)</td><td style="text-align: center;">8, 12*</td><td>Roll 1d; on a 4 this location is hit</td><td><br /></td></tr>
<tr><td><i> Forearms</i></td><td style="text-align: center;">(4%)</td><td style="text-align: center;">8, 12*</td><td>Roll 1d; on a 5-6 this location is hit</td><td><br /></td></tr>
<tr><td>Hands</td><td style="text-align: center;">2%</td><td style="text-align: center;">15</td><td></td><td><br /></td></tr>
<tr><td>Torso</td><td style="text-align: center;">36%</td><td style="text-align: center;">9-11</td><td>Vitals are hit on a 1 on a d6</td><td><br /></td></tr>
<tr><td><i> Chest</i></td><td style="text-align: center;">(12%)</td><td style="text-align: center;">9</td><td>Vitals are hit on a 1 on a d6</td><td>Bottom of the neck to the end of the sternum</td></tr>
<tr><td><i> Abdomen</i></td><td style="text-align: center;">(12%)</td><td style="text-align: center;">10</td><td>Vitals are hit on a 1 on a d6</td><td>Basically the stomach, from the bottom of the chest to the waistline</td></tr>
<tr><td><i> Pelvis</i></td><td style="text-align: center;">(12%)</td><td style="text-align: center;">11</td><td>Vitals are hit on a 1 on a d6</td><td>Waistline down the top of the legs</td></tr>
<tr><td>Legs</td><td style="text-align: center;">28%</td><td style="text-align: center;">6-7. 13-14</td><td></td><td><br /></td></tr>
<tr><td><i> Thighs</i></td><td style="text-align: center;">(12%)</td><td style="text-align: center;">6-7. 13-14*</td><td>Roll 1d; on a 1-3 this location is hit</td><td><br /></td></tr>
<tr><td><i> Knees</i></td><td style="text-align: center;">(4%)</td><td style="text-align: center;">6-7. 13-14*</td><td>Roll 1d; on a 4 this location is hit</td><td><br /></td></tr>
<tr><td><i> Sins</i></td><td style="text-align: center;">(4%)</td><td style="text-align: center;">6-7. 13-14*</td><td>Roll 1d; on a 5-6 this location is hit</td><td><br /></td></tr>
<tr><td>Feet</td><td style="text-align: center;">6%</td><td style="text-align: center;">16</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
It's a pretty minor tweak, but it brings the coverage amounts more in line with both the rule of 9 and Low-Tech. <br />
<br />
There are a bunch of things I like about this new table:<br />
<ul>
<li>Everything that has a front and back and a left side and right side is divisible by 4, so if you only want armor on your front right shin, its 1% and not some weird number like 1.125%.</li>
<li>The torso divides nicely into three sections of equal size, and the % coverage for each section is divisible by 2, so it's easy to calculate armor with "weak rear". And at least to me, the coverage for each section is pretty clear.</li>
<li>Hands are now reasonably small.</li>
<li>Feet are also small, but reasonably larger than the hands. </li>
</ul>
I'd a little sad that arm coverage is a little wonky, since a d6 doesn't divide evenly into quarters. That could be resolved by rolling 3d instead and if it really bothers you, you could do that or roll a d4 instead.<br />
<br />
Unfortunately, revising the GCA files is a pain up the tail, so it's going to be a while before this table goes into the GDF files. I should probably let people comment on it, anyway.Mark Langsdorfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00301984145275679568noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1287550692312955328.post-80486856714748826562016-11-12T10:33:00.001-08:002016-11-14T08:41:53.005-08:00Gathering Intelligence in GURPS Mass Combat<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-x-_a0bBsxQg/WCdrQxvDbCI/AAAAAAAABHU/f7ln7O72sV0QyocYdqGlBP3qRYM8LVoywCLcB/s1600/tumblr_oc27yuBiDX1qia2dho4_250.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-x-_a0bBsxQg/WCdrQxvDbCI/AAAAAAAABHU/f7ln7O72sV0QyocYdqGlBP3qRYM8LVoywCLcB/s1600/tumblr_oc27yuBiDX1qia2dho4_250.jpg" /></a>The role of intelligence chief in GURPS Mass Combat is pretty boring: you roll the dice in the reconnaissance contest, which can have meaningful effects in the battle, but you don't make any decisions. It would be better if the intelligence chief could actually go out and gather intelligence: who is the enemy commander? what are his goals? how many troops does he have? what strategies does he favor in battle? how good a commander is he? There are the kinds of questions that influence strategy.<br />
<br />
<br />
Fortunately, GURPS already has a fairly robust system for gathering clues and making deductions from them: it's the Investigation system in Monster Hunters: the Mission. It's not a 100% match for a fantasy mass combat game like <a href="http://noschoolgrognard.blogspot.com/2016/11/new-dawn-mass-battles-campaign-concept.html" target="_blank">New Dawn</a>, but I think the concept can be modified to fit. And the concept of having the intelligence chief gather intelligence in a fantasy game can be generalized for all Mass Combat games.<br />
<h2>
<br />Gathering Intelligence</h2>
An intelligence chief creates intelligence by making deductions from data. Deductions answer questions like the size of the enemy force, the skill of the enemy commander, the objective of the enemy operations, and the like. Deductions are earned by successful skill rolls against Intelligence Analysis, usually heavily penalized. Those penalties can be minimized by gathering data. Data is gathered through investigating sources, such as reading history or interrogating prisoners. When the intelligence chief feels he has enough data, he can attempt a deduction. Repeated attempts are possible, but are penalized, so it helps to gather more data between attempts.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Data and Sources</h3>
Each piece of data removes a -1 penalty on the deduction roll. Data can be gathered from a variety of sources, usually through a skill roll. Repeated attempts at the same source are at a cumulative -4. The intelligence chief doesn't have to gather all the data himself: he can use data gathered by other people at no bonus or penalty.<br />
<br />
<h4>
Research</h4>
Military history can provide information about a famous commander's abilities, preferred strategies, and skills. Roll <b>Research</b> or <b>History</b> with a bonus or penalty for the fame or obscurity of the commander. Gain a bonus for a better library. Earn one piece of data for success and another piece for every two points of MoS.<br />
<br />
If the enemy commander or any of his known troops are supernatural, then <b>Hidden Lore</b>, <b>Occultism</b>, <b>Theology</b>, and <b>Thaumotology</b> can be used to gather data about the abilities of the commander or the qualities of the troops. Gain a bonus or penalty for the fame or obscurity of the subject, but <b>Occultism</b> halves bonuses and doubles penalties. Earn one piece of data for success and another piece for every two points of MoS.<br />
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In a high-tech game, <b>Computer Operation</b> and <b>Computer Hacking</b> can be used as complementary skills on any research attempt. Success on Computer Operation gives a +1 on the research roll. Computer Hacking can be used to access secure data bases for better information: for every -2 penalty taken on the Computer Hacking roll, gain a +1 bonus of the research roll.<br />
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<h4>
Interrogation</h4>
Interrogating witnesses and enemy prisoners is the best way to gain data, but it can be very difficult.<br />
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Interrogating a friendly or neutral witness can give data about type and number of enemy troops that the witness has seen. Roll versus <b>Interrogation</b>, with <b>Detect Lies</b> and <b>Diplomacy</b> as complementary skills. Earn one piece of data for success and another piece for every two points of MoS. Repeated interrogations of eyewitnesses of the same force are at a non-cumulative -4.<br />
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Interrogating a prisoner is more difficult but more valuable. Rank 0-2 prisoners can provide data about the type and number of enemy troops and the enemy commander's goals. Higher rank prisoners also provide that data but can also provide data about any other topic. Roll contest of <b>Interrogation</b> versus the prisoner's <b>Will</b>, with <b>Detect Lies</b>, <b>Intimidation</b>, and <b>Psychology (Applied)</b> as complementary skills. Earn one piece of data for success, a bonus piece for the prisoner's rank, and another piece for every point of MoS. Interrogating multiple members of the same unit are at a non-cumulative -4.<br />
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<h4>
Special Abilities</h4>
Various advantages, spells, prayers can be used to gather data. The possibilities are pretty wide. Successful use of any any provides one appropriate piece of data per 5 points of ability cost. Unresisted abilities that have a success roll gain another piece of data on success and another piece per two points of MoS. Contest abilities gather another piece of data on success and another per point of MoS. The types of data depend on the ability used, but are generally pretty far-ranging.<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Examples: Mina uses her Channeling ability to contact the spirit of a general defeated by the enemy commander. She rolls Will, at +2 for her auto-trance ability, and gets complementary bonuses for Detect Lies and Diplomacy. She'll earn three pieces of data on success (2 for Channeling being worth 10 points and one for the success) and another for every two points of MoS, and can gather data on the enemy leader's abilities and preferred strategies. If she'd used her Mind Probe ability instead, it would have been a contest of Interrogation versus Will and she'd have earned 5 pieces of data on success and one more per point of MoS.</blockquote>
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Anyone who has data can think about it to gather further inferences. This is a Meditation roll at -5, with a +1 bonus per piece of data already available. Gain one additional piece of data on success. This can only be done once per question.<br />
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<h4>
Intelligence Coups</h4>
Intelligence coups are unpredictable events that provide significant data, such as capturing an enemy courier with orders from the capital or stealing a paymaster's logbook. Coups are always reconnaissance adventures (Mass Combat 30) and produce 10 pieces of data to answer an appropriate question. Coups provide a lot of data, but are still subject to analysis and can be misinterpreted.<br />
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IdkKNEaq_3U/WCdrQz-zWAI/AAAAAAAABHY/TIW3XGxTbEcKOZziTW3_XICL5obUZ0YCwCLcB/s1600/military-humor-funny-joke-army-intelligence-meme.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="241" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IdkKNEaq_3U/WCdrQz-zWAI/AAAAAAAABHY/TIW3XGxTbEcKOZziTW3_XICL5obUZ0YCwCLcB/s320/military-humor-funny-joke-army-intelligence-meme.jpg" width="320" /></a><br />
<h3>
Questions and Deductions</h3>
At any time, the intelligence chief can analyze the data and attempt a deduction to answer one of the following questions. Each question is penalized, and each piece of data relevant to the question removes a point of penalty. On success, the GM answers the question exactly. On failure, the GM provides an incorrect answer as determined by the question. Repeated deductions are at -2, and failures always give the previous result, except critical failures give a new result.<br />
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<table>
<tbody>
<tr><td><b>Question</b></td><td><div style="text-align: center;">
<b>Penalty</b></div>
</td><td><div style="text-align: center;">
<b>Complementary Skills</b></div>
</td><td><div style="text-align: center;">
<b>Answer on Success</b></div>
</td><td><div style="text-align: center;">
<b>Range on Failure</b></div>
</td></tr>
<tr><td>What are commander's personal special abilities?</td><td>-5</td><td>Occultism, Psychology (Applied)</td><td>Any Gifted Commander advantages, any advantages or disadvantages with a power modifier, any racial template advantages or disadvantages</td><td>1d random Gifted Commander or racial templates, capped by MoF</td></tr>
<tr><td>How skilled is the enemy commander?</td><td>-10</td><td>Strategy</td><td>Enemy commander's strategy skill</td><td>Enemy commander's strategy skill +/- 2d capped by MoF</td></tr>
<tr><td>What is the enemy commander's preferred battle strategy?</td><td>-10</td><td>Strategy</td><td>Enemy commander's preferred strategy</td><td>A similar strategy is MoF if 5 or less, or a random strategy</td></tr>
<tr><td>What is the enemy commander's objective?</td><td>-10</td><td>Psychology (Applied), Strategy</td><td>Enemy commander's objective</td><td>A similar objective if MoF is 5 or less, or a random objective</td></tr>
<tr><td>How skilled is the enemy commander?</td><td>-10</td><td>Psychology (Applied), Strategy</td><td>Enemy commander's strategy skill</td><td>Enemy commander's strategy
skill +/- 2d capped by MoF</td></tr>
<tr><td>How many troops and of what types are in the enemy force?</td><td>-6</td><td>Administration</td><td>List of element types and count</td><td>List of element types and counts, with each count +/- 2d*10%, capped by MoF</td></tr>
<tr><td>What is the quality of the enemy force?</td><td>-8</td><td>Administration</td><td>List of enemy elements and their equipment and troop quality</td><td>List of enemy elements, with gear and troop quality increased or decreased by up to one level per 3 MoF</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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Critical success on any deduction generates 3 pieces of data that can be applied to answer any one question as the intelligence chief manages to deduce additional information from the answer.<br />
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<h2>
Comments</h2>
My initial inspiration for this was Glen Cook's Black Company books. At the start of the books, the Black Company is hired on by an evil empire and finds themselves engaged in feuds among the mysterious sorcerers known as the Taken. The Company doesn't even know the names, much less the abilities of the Taken or their armies at the start of the story, and that air of intrigue is something I want to reproduce in New Dawn.<br />
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As I thought about it more, I realized that the intelligence chief is a boring role. The solution is to let the intelligence chief actually gather intelligence, using the traditional methods of research and interrogation. I should probably add a section for high-tech signals intelligence, but honestly that's both complicated and outside my immediate needs so I'm not going to.<br />
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As I said, I started with the Investigation framework for Monster Hunters. One significant change I made was turning deductions from something that happened every time someone found a clue (as happens in Monster Hunters) to something that only happened when the intelligence chief decided to attempt a deduction. My limited experience with Monsters Hunters was that a deduction per PC per clue meant that the power of iterative rolling allowed the PCs to deduce even very complicated puzzles through the sheer luck of someone critically succeeded. With 6 PCs, it only took 4-5 clues for someone to critically succeed, which meant puzzles could be solved during the first investigative scene. Shifting that deduction - with penalties for retrying, which means repeated attempts rarely give better results - to a decision on the PC's part should hopefully improve play.<br /><br />The assumption is that the intelligence chief will generally fail his analysis, but hopefully with a small margin of failure and nearly correct results. I think this is an easier approach than Monster Hunter's requiring large margins of success to fully deduce information.<br />
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Mark Langsdorfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00301984145275679568noreply@blogger.com1