Category: House Rules
Tweaking Frostgrave campaign rules
I’m on a bit of a Frostgrave kick as of late and it should be no surprise as I’m a fan of the game. One big draw is the campaign system and it really has that Mordheim feel of progression. You slowly accrue power and wealth, tricking out your wizard and warband. It’s fun.
But I think there are a few stumbling blocks with Frostgrave’s campaign game. The first is the focus on wiping out the enemy. Sure you can scramble to try and take off treasure, but you get more experience for your wizard personally wiping out enemy troops. Plus if you kill every soldier to the man, you get all the unclaimed treasure. Lastly, there is no turn limit. So you can take your damn sweet time hunting down the enemy rather than trying to scoop and scoot all the treasure in the field.
The other issue is the snowball effect with winning. You get to do a lot out of game. Open recruitment, buying any desired magical items, upgrading your base as you like, it all allows players to do so much which is great. But if you are slipping behind in gold and XP, you start trailing. Sure a few games it’s okay to lose some. But eventually if you’ve gotten the snot beat out of you for a few games, you aren’t ever going to catch up.
I’m certain other folks have noticed this. In fact a few people whipped up their own tweaks to the campaign system. Much of what has been circulated around is great stuff but sadly have gone the way of lost files and broken links. So I went ahead and compiled some changes I liked and added my own.
One big change was the experience system. Too much emphasis was on wiping out the other player. That’s been removed and instead casting XP for any in-game spell has been increased. I didn’t want to completely remove the impetus for killing troops though. You end up getting experience from your warband survivors. So while you no longer get experience for killing enemies, you can certainly curtail the XP your opponent gains after the battle putting their soldiers to the sword (or making them a smoldering pile of ashes).
The other big change was awarding treasure XP. Having limited game turns and XP only guaranteed for yourself by taking treasure off the table, now it’s more of an objective-driven game. Standing treasure on the board now awards XP to both players, so if wanting a bigger share of the booty you’ve got to haul that gold off the board.
Another small tweak was the loss of wizards. Now they can’t be permanently killed. They can be bloodied and saddled with permanent injuries, but they’ll always manage to crawl back to camp. With the game being so centered around your wizard, the option of them being wiped out due to some bad die rolls left a sour taste. Having a chance to let them redeem themselves just fits better.
Lastly, the out of game actions are better structured and curtailed some. Buying magical goods is no longer a free shopping experience and the stocks are limited. Even more so, you are limited to choosing a few actions out of game. This makes the whole campaign experience a little more strategic.
Much of these changes are from the community in general but I’ve added my own bits as well. You can find a complete document in the downloads section. Hope folks find some use from them for your games.
A wound system for Frostgrave
I like Frostgrave. There are some rough spots but as a fun skirmish game with a fantasy twist, it gets a lot more right than wrong. One really hangup for me though was the damage system. I just really hated the idea of recording actual health points.
For Wizards and Apprentices, I totally get it. You need that gradation of health point pools. There is so much that revolves around it and the entire system of casting spells requires you ticking off those individual points. If you try to break it up using tokens or markers, it just takes too much away from the game.
But for soldiers and followers, well they are meant to be cannon fodder. I just didn’t get the idea why some other method couldn’t be used to record damage. I feel I’m just too used to other systems that have easier record keeping. So I decided to work on something similar for Frostgrave.
I’ll freely admit this makes the game especially deadly. Most grunt soldiers are usually going to be dropping in 2 hits. Also, you’ll be losing some granularity with damage due to using wound tokens instead of health points. Folks might want to consider just using it for creatures instead, but I find the easier tracking of health totals worth it.
So here are a few things I adopted for my games. Spellcasters (Wizard and Apprentice) suffer damage and gain healing unchanged from the rule book. But for followers and creatures, they no longer have point totals for health. Instead damage is tracked by wounds and possibly marred conditions. The pool of wounds that soldiers and creatures have is their health total divided by 4, rounded down. So a Thug with 10 health points would have a wound pool total of 2 (10/4 and rounding down).
You determine damage normally from combat or casting spells. But for for every 4 points a model suffers in damage, they take a wound removing it from their health pool. For every fraction of 4 (i.e. 1-3 points damage), they receive a marred condition. If a model has 2 marred conditions, those conditions are removed and a wound is immediately taken from their pool of wounds instead. Note that healing works the same for spellcasters, but for soldiers they only restore one wound of damage.
As an example, a thug is hit for 5 damage. One wound would be removed from its pool and it gains a marred condition. On the next turn, the thug is hit again for only 2 damage, giving it another marred condition. As this is the 2nd marred condition it has, it immediately takes a wound, removing the marred condition markers. Further, since the thug has a health pool of 2 wounds, its health has dropped to zero and is removed from the game.
I also introduced a handful of characteristics for soldiers and some creatures. The idea was to cover the bases with creatures that have less than 4 points of health and also add some variety with soldiers that straddle the line of between health totals in increments of four. A more detailed list of these rules can be found in the downloads section. I think they work pretty well and allow for a little easier bookkeeping during the game, but still captures the flavor of Frostgrave combat.
Tinkering with Call of Cthulhu: The Auction – Part 1
The Auction is a classic adventure for Call of Cthulhu taken out of the 1983 collection, The Asylum and other Tales. I dearly fell in love with the idea of the scenario and used it for my own Cthulhu Savage Worlds game. For folks not familiar with the scenario, players participate in an auction set in Vienna during the 30s for several rumored occult items. After the auction well…let’s just say things go a little pear-shaped.
It’s a great adventure full of intriguing theme and certainly one of the better scenario setups. For new fans of CoC, it’s one I highly recommend pleading with your keeper to take a peek at and consider running it themselves. I’ll leave it at that with the details. If you’ve got interest in playing it, go shoo and let the rest of this grumbling be for just the keepers and GMs. Spoilers ahead!
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As I mentioned I’m a fan of the Auction. It works well as something to fold into an existing campaign or for a one shot. It’s not perfect however and seems there are some glaring hitches with the the adventure. One is the auction itself and the other is somewhat the greater mystery that presents later, of which seems to causes problems when running it. I’ve opted to break this up over into a couple of posts talking about how I handled it for my players and the changes made to make it a more engaging adventure.
The first issue I’ve got is the auction itself. For a continuing campaign, this is likely a decent adventure hook. It’s something to allow players to establish contacts in Europe and a means to pick up a few occult items. However I’d put money on most people playing the Auction as something of a one shot session. Most folks aren’t going to have an ongoing Cthulhu campaign.
There is a different draw to getting investigators to participate, and that as being cooperative bidders for a third party. For my game this is the route I took and felt it made a stronger hook. Players are asked to utilize their occult expertise to ascertain the authenticity of certain items and cunningly bid on lesser trinkets to drain the resources of other bidders. All in hopes that the group can eventually scoop up some items their patron is keen on obtaining. I loved this idea and recognized it could be a sort of mini-game within the game.
As written the Auction sounds enticing. The players themselves will likely be excited to participate in it. Who wouldn’t enjoy an evening soiree culminating in an auction for supernatural items? The problem is once you actually start running an auction, it gets old fast. If you dig around, there are some live play podcasts that painfully demonstrate this. There’s a lot of excitement for the first few items, but then PCs realize how repetitive the entire thing is. You can hear one player in a live play recording illustrate this tedium as they quipped something along the lines of, “Are we going to go through the bidding for all the items?”
What cements playing the auction out as a useless exercise is the twist in the middle of the event. There is a murder and the entire auction is halted. Half the items players likely have researched and pondered over won’t even be bid on. I loved the concept, but actually playing out an auction just seemed to mess with the pacing. It had some merit but a faster resolution was needed and players had to have a stake in all the auction lots, just not the ones they were interested in.
Firstly, I had their patron tell the PCs he was interested in about 6 different items from the auction list. He forwarded them a line of credit including a lengthy legal agreement. They would return all the funds placed in their accounts that were unspent and hand over any items successfully bid. I didn’t use actual numbers for cash though. Instead I gave every player 3 credit markers. These represented funds that would be used for the auction. NPCs had 3-4 markers themselves. If anyone was out of markers, they were out of the auction.
PCs got a list of wanted items from their patron. To sweeten the pot some, if a player got an item and had 2 credit markers remaining at the end of the night, they’d get a cash bonus. In game terms, I offered players a bennie if they won a bid for an item desired by their patron regardless of cash spent obtaining it. Thier objective was to try and gain as many items on the list, while carefully bidding on unwanted items to run through the NPC’s cash. If they blew all their cash and got items not wanted on the list, they were stuck with a bill and/or having an NPC they owed a big favor to.
Each auction bid round required players and NPCs to make trait test based on either persuasion or intimidation as primary checks. Secondary trait checks could be made with a -1 penalty for notice or smarts. I felt a -2 penalty for being unskilled would not apply and smarts could always be used. Intimidation and persuasion might be considered an odd choice, however they seemed good candidates in either goading NPCs to bid, or putting up such a strong front they could stare down competitive bidders. Gambling could also likely be a decent choice for a secondary skill.
Roughly half of the NPCs would be wild cards. Before each auction item, I randomly determined which NPCs would be actively bidding. At least half of the NPCs (rounding down) would bid on an item if they had 3 or more credit markers. If all NPCs had 2 or less credit markers, at least one NPC with some credit remaining would always bid, and this lone bidding NPC should be a wild card if possible.
Now winning or losing an item depended on what was being bid for. Players had to have at least 2 credit markers to bid on an item. NPCs needed at least 3, but would bid if they had less depending if any other NPCs weren’t bidding (as mentioned above).
For lots that the patron wanted, the PC or NPC that got got the highest check on their trait test won the item, and would spend their 2 credit markers. If a player or NPC aced their trait test they could take back one credit marker (multiple aces have no effect i.e. at least 1 credit marker was lost if they won a bid). Note that these were not trait challenge rolls or tests of will. Each player/NPC made the appropriate check and the highest roll won.
For auction items the patron didn’t want, the player/NPC with the lowest trait roll would ‘win’ the unwanted item paying 2 credit markers. For each ace that PCs or NPCs rolled beating the lowest trait score, that player/NPC put in an extra marker up to a maximum of 4 (or 3 if they were an PC). So not only had the others gotten the player/NPC to be the highest bidder for the unwanted the item but they had severely overbid for it.
In the case of a tie, players can put in an additional marker to automatically win over NPCs (or other players). If both players put in a marker, they make another check and keep rolling until one player wins. Players didn’t get this extra spent credit marker back if they won the bid, even with an ace.
This set up for a mini game. At the start there were several NPCs bidding for items. If players rolled well for unwanted items, they would slowly decrease the number of NPCs attempting to bid for future rounds. PCs also wanted to try and roll as high as possible for the patron lot items. If they got lucky and aced their rolls, they might win a bid and not spend as much cash. Plus there was always a bonus of getting a bennie if they won the item.
This worked great. It resolved fast. It kept everyone trying to roll high regardless if it was an item their patron wanted or not. Players wanted to gain items as it gave them bennies. They also were engaged and active in just about all the auction lot bids. I scrambled the lot list order some and made sure only half of the 16 items were bid on so only 8 items were bid for. Yet this moved pretty quickly and allowed me to get onto the second part, the murder mystery.
Verdantia – an alternate setting for Frostgrave
I enjoy Frostgrave. Yet I’m not too keen on collecting a bunch of terrain and rebasing models to fit in the ice and snow setting of the game. One plus I found was that the background for Frostgrave was paper thin. As long as it was in decaying city ruins, you could plop that down anywhere. I embraced this and decided to create a different place. Another sprawling labyrinth of decaying city ruins… Verdantia.
Long ago were the Dragonborne, a reptilian race of people that were infused with the arcane powers of dragons. Their empire flourished in the hot lands of lush jungles and scorching deserts, with only tepid cities built skirting much of the colder lands to the north. It is said their reign was for 5,000 years and then overnight, their kind disappeared. Thousands of years since their demise many of their mysterious monuments still litter the landscape.
Some legends say that they fell into warring factions, wielding powerful magics that resulted in the destruction of their race. Other legends speak of a great religious movement which rebelled against their affinity of the arcane, choosing instead to worship primal gods. The winning faction of this war were the followers of primitive nature, resulting in the savage lizardmen seen in the world today. No one can claim the true reason for the fall of the Dragonborne. What cannot be refuted is that this grand civilization reached an epoch, and in the matter of years slid into obscurity, utterly wiped from existence.
However now many state that it was the great network of portals, created by the Dragonborne, which lead to their downfall. These portals weakened the normal boundaries of the physical world. They allowed primal, chaotic aberrations to slip in, and brought destruction to their great civilization. A statement which is supported in grave hindsight to the terrible fate that had befallen Verdantia.
Twelve standing portal gates scattered among the lands were remains of the Dragonborne and their enigmatic past. These portals were widely distributed not only among different regions in the southern lands, but also a few sparse regions to the north, as well as the western coast that lay beyond the great mountains. The portals themselves were made of thick stone etched with arcane script and large enough for a cart of oxen to pass through. Once one entering the glowing stone arch a traveler would instantly appear from another paired portal gate, safe but unable to enter another portal for a full day.
All of the 12 portals congregated at one location, a sprawling set ruins within a steaming jungle. The gates were arranged in a circle on a great stone platform within the center of a crumbling city. Even stranger, a 13th portal structure was at the center of these gates. This 13th portal appeared as a standing, empty stone ring yet much larger than the other portal gates. This last grand portal appeared to be non-functional however, either never completed or its paired portal location destroyed somehow.
This far off region soon became a nexus of trade. A small community sprung up as brave merchants were willing to travel through the portal gates, spend a day within the hazardous jungle and decaying city, only to travel through another shimmering stone arch and reach far off cities. Soon the community grew and adopted the name Verdantia, taken from the lush jungle surroundings. It was in the year 400 of the Imperial Calendar that Octavius VI endeavored to make Verdantia part of the grand human empire.
Octavius entered Verdantia with his great army and cleansed the decaying ruins of all manner of creatures that remained there. He oversaw the reconstruction of the city, and in many cases simply built anew over the carcass of the old foundations. The college of Imperial Wizards relocated to the recovering city, its members eager to scour the ancient ruins for long lost arcane knowledge. Coin flourished in Verdantia and it became the hub of world trade. Warehouses sprung up as brokers for staple and speculative goods haggled among the crowded streets of local merchants. Money lenders and currency changers of different regions also congregated within Verdantia. Yet despite the successful efforts to rebuild the city, Verdantia was far from peaceful. It was ever under threat from the surrounding jungle which held many horrible creatures, cunning goblin clans, and savage lizardmen tribes.
In Y700 IC, rumors were spread far and wide of an ancient chamber discovered within the labyrinth of catacombs that ran under Verdantia. Within this chamber was a tome of necrotic spells that held secrets of the undead. A treasure of knowledge for those seeking greater understanding of the dark arts. This tome became the unrelenting focus of the terrible lich, Ulaam the undying.
His great undead army sacked Nordia, the western coastal city of frigid waters, and using the portal gate located there Ulaam poured his legions of skeletal and ghoul warriors into Verdantia. For over a month humans and undead creatures openly fought within the city streets. Imperial wizards flung spells at undead lichs and other necromancers that had joined under Ulaam’s dark banner. While the city was in chaos, the palisades were no longer manned and goblins, gnolls, and lizardmen warbands struck deep within Verdantia, further inflaming this chaotic war.
In ensuing battles as the human forces were buffeted by these other newly arrived factions, Ulaam was finally able to make a decisive strike. He spearheaded an attack into the Imperial Wizard library and was able to capture the necrotic spell book he so prized. Within days, he was able to decipher a great spell that would turn the tide of the battle towards his favor. It is rumored he emerged from a tower, his gaunt form encircled with a clinging dark yellow mist that appeared to be billowing from his mouth which was constantly muttering an incantation.
This yellow mist flowed over the city seeping into the lower recesses of Verdantia. Living creatures within this poisonous cloud choked and died. To the horror of living creatures that managed to stay above this yellow haze perched atop buildings, comrades and creatures slain by the sorcerous fog shambled to life and began to shuffle towards any living being, eager to tear them apart or drag them down into the suffocating poison mist. Legends from survivors speak of the horrible visage of Ulaam cackling on the steps of the ring of portals, leering down at the undead havoc he had wrought. But this victory was fleeting. The doom that visited the Dragonborne empire so long ago came to Verdantia then.
The sky became dark and the sun was blotted out from an eclipse. The 13th portal, this dormant gate that was silent for millennia shimmered and forms became to pour forth. All manners of demons and elemental creatures spilled into the city. Chittering demons of chaos fluttered above, and huge lumbering golems and elementals ran amok unfazed by the poisonous fog. They tore into living and undead forces alike, imbued with primal magic. It was said the footsteps of some elementals appeared as roots seeping into the cobbled stone roads, breaking them apart, and leaving footprints of lush green plants.
As the darkness faded from above and the sun slowly seeped out, the central portal stone frame cracked, and exploded into a shower of fragments. Each gate in turn shattered and exploded, as if the elemental energy within the air was finally able to dispel the arcane power which enchanted the portal gates. Verdantia was lost, secluded from the world, and again a crumbling city deep within a foreboding jungle.
The decaying ruins are now home to all manners of venomous creatures and savage beasts. Cunning goblins, gnolls, and fierce lizardmen are rumored to reside there. Ulaam’s necrotic presence still taints it, as undead continue to shamble among the ruined streets (darker tales say that Ulaam still lives in undeath, hidden away within the bowels of the city). Along with these creatures are far greater threats of demons and great elementals which still can be seen lurking within Verdantia.
But the faded seclusion of fallen Verdantia was not to last. There are too many riches deep within those crumbling ruins. Too many magical treasures and arcane texts to ignore. Wizards which covet such great power gather soldiers and fledgling apprentices under their wing to undergo perilous expeditions into Verdantia. It is a lost city, but one with wealth and great arcane power for those steely enough to take it.
Using a deck of cards for Dread
Dread is a horror rpg from Impossible Dream Publishing. It’s a game with bare bones rules designed for one shot sessions. At the centerpiece of Dread is a tower of wooden blocks (Jenga) where players attempt to pull blocks and place them back on top of the tower for task resolution. If they can complete this manual exercise, the task in the game is successful. Knock over the tower and your player suffers some horrible fate, being removed from the game (they die, go mad, slip into a coma, etc.).
I love the idea, however I can see it getting a little clunky later in the game. Block pulls can take more time near the end as the tower gets more unstable. While that added tension is part of the charm for Dread, it can add some dissonance as you are switching from narrative tension to one revolving around a physical task. Lastly once a tower does fall, you’ve got this break in the game where the tower has to be assembled for the remaining players, further deflating the tension at the table.
Also as pacing goes you can get those crazy flubs of a pull (or the accidental table bump) which send the tower crashing. Everyone can always shrug this off and keep going, but it means additional downtime as the tower is reassembled.
Playing cards can be used as an alternate to the tower with a joker randomly placed in the deck (check in the downloads section). I wanted to give the game some more structure though. Dread is based on a normal assumption that a tower would fall between 35 and 55 pulls. Placing the joker randomly in the last 20 cards of a deck ensures there are some safe draws for about half of the deck.
Tension is in the game though, as players will see their safe options dwindle. Each draw of the card continually makes the deck smaller and smaller. With that joker card ever moving to the top draw of the deck. However this is a still a little too structured though as players can figure out exactly how many draws are needed before something bad could happen.
One way to work around this is having some suits and cards force additional pulls. I opted to have some require another draw from the deck, yet other cards would allow for an option. For those, players may choose to fail instead of making another draw from the deck. Both of these speed up the number of cards being drawn, pushing that joker to the top of the deck faster.
Another tweak was allowing aces for certain suits to be set aside and saved. They could be used instead of pulling from the deck, or offered to other players. The one exception would be for the last 10 cards of the deck. At that point players would be required to draw from the deck as the story scales tipped to the point of being out of control.
What I whipped up here certainly has my mind racing for applications in other games. I’m digging the idea of suits and ranks of cards trumping others allowing players for some options with altering task outcomes. I particularly see this being a means to remove a GM from the game, or potentially move it into being a shared activity. I think that is a big stumbling block for some RPGs. While a GM allows for amazing games they also are an entry barrier, and RPGs that could be played without the need for one likely might expand the hobby more. Hope folks get some use out of this Dread option at their game table.
Fiddling with the new Shaken rules
A big announcement came out for Savage Worlds that the shaken rules were now being tweaked. Old rules were that if a shaken test was passed, the next turn they could act normally. On a raise they could act normal immediately. The new version gets rid of that with players (and extras) being able to act normal immediately if they pass a shaken test. Raises no longer matter.
I totally dig the new rules. It streamlines the process and reduces the fiddly bookkeeping of that extra passing their test and no longer being shaken, but not really as they still can’t act as normal until the following turn. Conditions now are truly either up, down, or off the table. I like that.
However it does hinder some tactics a little. Typical extras are now sitting on a 50-50 chance they’ll be unaffected by any shaken status players throw on them. Needing a raise to act normally really pushed making that shaken status a more lasting condition. Now it could be treated as a condition which can be ignored given recovery is instantaneous on a success passing a simple Spirit test.
I’m tweaking this some. For all tests to recover from shaken a -1 modifier is applied to the Spirit roll. This is a little nudge to the probabilities to make shaken last a bit longer, especially for extras. They effectively recover on a 5+ now.
What I like about this house rule is that leadership edges like Command and Inspire can have a place at the table. The importance of a D6 Spirit over a D4 for wildcards is lessened some, but there is still a slight advantage having a higher Spirit. Additionally putting a shaken condition on something still allows for a lasting penalty that can be taken advantage of by opponents.
So I’m adding this small house rule to my game. A quick -1 penalty to the check that allows for rapid resolution of a shaken condition and embraces the philosophy of Savage Worlds keeping it fast, furious, and fun.
Bolt Action house rules
Some time back I lamented about LMGs in Bolt Action. They aren’t the only rough spot with the rules for me. While I understand the philosophy of some game elements being the way they are, it does at times seem to run roughshod with historical accuracy. Another big stickler with me was transports not being able to fire mounted weapons without passengers. I get why it was done this way (to prevent a bunch of mobile LMG platforms running around), but this sort of flies in the face of some nation’s tactics using armored troop carriers.
Other folks have taken up the mantle for using standard house rules. I think it’s a good idea. For house rules, I always liked having a document prepared to pass around before the game. It’s nice to be able to trumpet loud and clear rule changes you are playing with. So here are my limited list of house rules that can be found in the downloads section.
LMG point cost – I’ve talked about it before. LMGs are broken with their point costs. They cost far more than what they are worth on the tabletop. I’ve opted to drop the requirement of having a loader. It’s likely still overpriced, but at least they are no longer throwing out less attack dice than an equivalent point squad armed with rifles only.
Open-topped armored transports and pinning – I was waiting for the Tank War book to address issues with open-topped vehicles. It never did. Open-topped vehicles are simply too fragile to work as troop transports. By adopting the Tank War pinning rules, it’s a gamble for the attacker to throw a pin on transports now. It encourages folks to pick up veteran troop transports and start utilizing APCs more.
Transports firing weapons without passengers – Another stickler with me was requiring passengers to fire transport weapons. My solution likely adds to the ‘problem’ of roaming LMG teams. However I like the idea that transports can throw their firepower into the mix without needing passengers, but it’s limited to fire orders only.
Fixed weapons rotating – I find it interesting that Beyond the Gates of Antares, a sci-fi sister to Bolt Action, has this rule in place. Not being able to rotate fixed weapons at all seriously hindered MMG and AT guns. Being able to do so now allows them some more flexible use on the table.
Priority air strikes – It’s always a crap shoot with air support. Not only can it bounce and hit your units, but you might flub your support roll getting a strafing attack instead if targeting a tank. It’s a little too random. While there are optional air rules out there, I thought about instead allowing the air observer a greater chance of calling in heavy air support. It still is risky, but can be mitigated with taking a veteran observer (again offering an advantage if doing so).
MMG/HMG teams and pins – MMG teams to me seem fragile and despite the volume of fire they can throw onto a unit, they can only inflict one pin. Being able to rotate helps however I decided to add a new weapon tag, suppression. MMGs when targeting infantry units now have a 1 in 3 chance of dropping 2 pins on a target unit instead of 1. It’s just a little boost to indicate these weapons are effective at forcing infantry to keep their head down.
Deviating smoke rounds – I am not keen with the indirect smoke round rules. It’s too much in the hands of your opponent. I’m more favorable with random deviation on the round lands instead. The distance is also random, and can also drop closer to the target area which might actually make it work too well. But I dig the idea of using smoke more and the rules in the book discourage it.
So these are my changes. I haven’t dabbled much in vehicle flamethrowers. I understand they certainly could use tweaking based on the grumbling on various forums. That might be something else to add to the list at a later date. Hope folks get some use out of these rules (or at least inspire you all to whip up some of your own).
Using different initiative systems for D&D
I have a love-hate relationship with classic initiative in D&D. One plus is at least for the first turn, things are chaotic. You can get a player rolling high and step into the action immediately, and you can have a player instead be a little flat-footed by rolling low. It’s fun. However on the following turns it slips into a set order and the humdrum of a predictable routine for turns becomes the norm. Alternately, it’s a little jarring breaking up the narrative to jump into wargame mode for a combat by telling players to roll for initiative.
Newbie Dm has been pondering this last point some, with thoughts of dropping it completely. I can agree that calling out initiative is like announcing RP needs to jump in the backseat as butt-kicking time is taking over the story steering wheel. I don’t quite have an answer for that. There is a certain disconnect with D&D when it comes to roleplaying and the actual mechanics of combat resolution. You can certainly pepper RP into a melee, but there will still be those mechanisms in the background of rolling to hit and damage, with initiative order lumped into that too.
However, I wouldn’t kick initiative to the curb. I realize it can break up the narrative in some cases, but having a completely open order for combats can also allow players to slip into taking over the action completely. I like the idea of combats being deadly and unpredictable. In that aspect, classic rolling for initiative sort of captures that. The problem I have is it slips into a set order, with no surprises after the first turn.
Look at wargames – The idea of unit activation is something that’s been tackled quite a bit through a variety of means in miniature wargames. A lot of designers try to model friction in command and unit activation, and uncertain turn order helps mimic that some. Taking a look at how other games handle unit activation (or initiative), especially wargames, can offer some good ideas for porting them over to D&D. Mind you, what I’ll talk about here is by no means an exhaustive list for systems used in miniature wargames but they are some common themes.
IGOUGO – This is a common turn order system. A player chooses all the units they wish to activate and resolve their actions, then their opponent does the same. This can be shaken up some requiring command checks to see if a unit can be activated.
I’m not a fan of IGOUGO. Even with command checks, you have a degree of certainty how your turn will play out. This isn’t to say it’s not a popular system though. Warhammer 40K and Flames of War use IGOUGO and are probably some of the biggest systems around for wargames. For D&D, you could just have all the players go, and then all the monsters. It can work but not my cup of tea.
Alternate activation – This is a popular stepping stone between IGOUGO and random activation. Players pick one unit to activate and play out the turn, their opponent then does the same, going back and forth until all the units are activated. For D&D, you can have players and the monsters go back and forth, or break it up with the PCs having 2-3 characters act, then a few creatures. It’s serviceable. The kicker is usually figuring out who which side starts at the top of the turn. Commonly a lot of wargames decide that by rolling a die (sometimes with modifiers to represent better command and/or morale). Deciding by the highest dexterity scores D&D might work for D&D.
Random Activation – For me this has become my favorite system in wargames, as it can provide you with utter, random chaos. Granted D&D has this right off the bat with rolling initiative too, however the order becomes static. I’m a fan of keeping things completely random throughout the entire combat for each turn. There are two ways to handle this. One could be that each player/monster is assigned a specific card and they are randomly drawn from a shuffled deck.
Another more flexible system would be splitting a deck of cards up by color, with one side activating when their color is drawn. This could also be done using dice of two sets of uniform colors. To keep ensure everyone gets a turn, you could make a special deck (or pool of dice) where each individual unit is represented by a card of their respective color. One my favorite games, Bolt Action uses this system with colored dice. It’s easy and flexible enough that you can choose what unit to activate (provided you get lucky enough to draw the right colored die).
Savage Worlds also employs a random initiative system going by numerical/suit order using a standard deck of cards. I love it. It makes each turn hectic as you can’t predict exactly when you’ll act from turn to turn. While you could mimic the same thing in D&D just re-rolling initiative for each turn, mechanically drawing from a deck of cards is easier after a good shuffle.
Point allocation – Another system commonly used in wargames is point allocation. Each side has a limited number of command points which can be spent to activate units. Likely not all units on a side will be activated during a given turn and typically a unit can only be activated once. Even using IGOUGO, this can add an element of friction in command and control. SAGA uses something like this and I find it immensely enjoyable.
If you were trying to embrace a more narrative approach to initiative in D&D, point allocation would be something I’d use. When I’ve run Dungeon World, I used a point allocation system. It worked wonders.
The problem with combats for me in Dungeon World was that they were too open. If you had a player or two that were more proactive around the table, they could hoard the action for the group. I needed to break that up and it was a little rough just putting a hard stop to a player’s turn and pushing others to act instead during combat.
So I gave each player 2 markers. When they did something they threw it into the center. If they had no markers, they had to wait. Once everyone spent their markers, they all took 2 markers and the process would repeat. For modelling simultaneous actions in a short time frame, this worked well.
To embrace the open narrative of Dungeon World, I would allow a player to voluntarily give a marker to another player if they wanted. That way if a PC was on a roll doing some cool stuff, another player could allow them to hog the spotlight a bit longer. It added some structure to combats but was still flexible enough for Dungeon World. Going for a more free-form initiative in D&D, I would do something similar.
Handling high (or low) dexterity – This is something that can put a kink into different initiative systems. Players with high dex usually get an initiative bonus acting before others. I’d whip up a house rule allowing PCs to redraw a card, pull another die, or possibly get an additional activation token. There is nothing wrong with giving high dex players some advantage with determining turn order. Regardless, I’d always adopt a house rule to allow players to go first in the case of ties. It’s just a little nod to the players and encouraging them to be heroes over the monsters.
These are a few ideas you might want to port over to your D&D game. If anything, I encourage folks to play other games. I especially think DMs should experience different games aside from RPGs. You really get exposed to interesting game mechanisms playing other types of games, and may be surprised how many things you can pick up to make your own D&D game better.
The problem with LMGs in Bolt Action
I really enjoy Bolt Action. While it’s not a WW2 simulation it certainly is a fun skirmish game. As it’s been out a while, sure enough errata has slowly crept into it. However the lead designer, Alessio Cavatore, has a philosophy of trying to minimize errata. He really believes in saving it for rules that are unclear, as opposed to trying to fix problems in the game.
One thing that has stood out for a long time is the LMG. Being a tournament game, based on building forces with points, inevitably you are going to get people trying to get the most competitive army possible. As such, LMGs consistently never seemed to make the cut. As a team weapon at +20 points, it appears people just couldn’t justify the points for getting them.
There are some slight advantages with LMGs. Most notably is the range. At 30″ they can really reach out and touch someone. You can get pins put on a unit well before they can return fire. Even with penalties for firing on the move, long range, and having a target in light cover, with 6s you are rolling enough dice to get roughly a 50/50 chance to throw on a pin.
I’m convinced LMGs were viewed in the light of max squads. They are the only way to add some firepower to a full unit. Given LMGs are team weapons, having 2 extra dice would be roughly equivalent to having 2 more rifles in a squad. From that perspective, paying +20 points for a LMG works out. The 2 extra dice being similar to spending another 20 points to add two more men.
This falls apart though when you aren’t looking at max squads. A regular 5 man squad with a LMG compared to spending an equivalent 70 points for 7 riflemen, you actually throw out less dice. Due to the team weapon rule, you only get 6 fire dice. Ignoring that 7 man squads can take more casualties and pitch more dice into an assault, you still come out on top with fire dice compared to buying a LMG with the same points.
The cost for LMGs are broken. Sadly, it’s not something that will be addressed either (or at least until Bolt Action 2). But for a competitive tournament scene, it’s odd that LMGs are not encouraged more to be included in a force list. This also smacks right in the face of historical composition of infantry squads. LMGs were pretty much standard armament to compliment infantry. So a couple of ideas to consider…
Drop the team weapon – I did this for my BA sci-fi conversion. With no loader needed, you are at least matching the number of dice that a 7 man rifle squad is rolling. So that 5 man squad with a LMG generates the same amount of fire dice for the same amount of points.
Lower the cost of LMGs – The other answer is lowering the points. One suggestion is paying only 5 points. At first this seems too cheap. However if you take into consideration the team weapon rule, you are only generating 1 more die for shooting when comparing a LMG to 2 riflemen. Looking at this, +5 points for LMGs match very well against troops armed with BARs or assault rifles which generate a similar number of extra fire dice.
Of the two I am leaning towards dropping the team weapon rule. Maybe only have a penalty if it’s the last person in a squad. The only reason I am leaning this way is I like keeping points for models roughly similar. That way if in the incredibly unusual situation I actually hit up a tournament sometime, I am not scrambling to adjust my points. This is the only reason however. Looking over the numbers, keeping it a team weapon and lowering the cost to +5 points is actually a better solution.
I’ll put money on the point cost of LMGs being addressed in an updated rulebook. Till then I guess I’ll have to tinker with them to make them more cost efficient.
Money in Savage Worlds
I’m not a fan of keeping track of money in games. A long time ago I used to dole out silver and gold coins, making sure my PCs kept track of the money they spent for ale and a night’s rest at the inn. I stopped doing that altogether in my games.
However money is still a motivator for some PCs. They want loot, or a means to acquire it through cash, so having some manner of wealth is something I needed. I just didn’t want to get mired down in individual dollars/gold coins/credits. For my 4E D&D game I took up the concept of chests of treasure. I simply awarded some abstract chest of treasure, a pile of coins, or just a share of wealth.
So for my Savage Worlds game, I adopted this as resolving wealth through shares. Shares are an abstract sum of wealth. They can be awarded in ½ increments. When players complete a job, or gain a significant amount of reward, they gain a share. A share is about $250 (or ½ the starting money a player gets during character generation), with ½ shares being roughly half that ($100-125).
Monthly income and expenses – I assume that every month a player goes through ½ a share. This is the gradual expenses of housing, food, upkeep of equipment, entertainment, etc. At the same time, if a player is not actively adventuring, they accumulate ½ a share. So the net income per month is zero. They are spending as much as they are earning.
I see this as a player spending time gathering spell components, income from odd jobs, money for pelts they’ve trapped, or the occasional sale they get from running some business they own. It all depends on the setting and the resources available to the player. Regardless, they get enough to pay the bills, keep a roof over their head, and their belly full.
Purchases – If they want to buy incidentals or some special equipment, I don’t worry if it’s under $100. I consider they have enough money on hand to cover the costs. Restocking arrows, buying flasks of oil, or repairing equipment, I just lump into typical monthly expenses. If they are making a larger purchase for special expensive equipment, that is when I dig into the players’ resources. Then I’ll have players spending shares in at least ½ increments, translating it to dollar amounts. So I don’t sweat the small stuff, it’s the larger purchases and expenses that hit the PCs in their purse strings.
Rewards – Most jobs are going to award each player one share. They might pick up more during the adventure, but one share is going to be the typical reward they’ll each get from a patron. Actively adventuring will cut into the time they would be spending gaining income through other means. At the end of the day, a player will be earning ½ a share in actual profits as they are going through ½ a share every month. So it’s a slow accumulation of wealth but players can earn a bit.
I like this as it leaves open more opportunities to give out rewards. Players might be charged with exploring a set of ruins. For such a task they’ll get one share from a patron. During the exploration they might come across treasure or some artifact that’ll fetch them even more money, allowing them to individually get another share (or a half).
I simply don’t bother with having players record every bit of wealth they get. If they stop a few bandits, in reality they might find a few dollars between them all however it’s not worth writing down. I end up hand-waving a lot of rewards. Players will always find just enough through your typical adventuring to pay for incidentals. It’s the completion of larger tasks that earn them enough reward to be considered a ‘share.’
Being Rich or Poor –These edges and hindrances can be a little tricky. For the wealthy edge I figure that a player is earning 1/2 share a month, regardless if they are actively adventuring or not. I still assume that whatever money they take in, they are spending just as much enjoying a more affluent lifestyle. They just don’t have to work at it as much as others.
This means if typical PCs take a job for 1 share, they’ll net ½ a share in profit at the end of the month. Remember they spend about half a share each month in expenses and adventuring takes away from time spent making a steady income. That PC with a wealthy edge will be walking away with a full share of profit instead. They aren’t penalized for spending time adventuring (it’s nice to live off interest, a trust fund, etc.).
For PCs with a poverty hindrance, they don’t gain ½ a share income every month like other players. So while other players can keep their heads above water and net a little profit leading a life of adventure, that poor PC will always be digging into their pockets a bit more. These guys have to always be on the prowl for work and always be looking for some manner of employment. While others have enough resources to get by, idleness will slowly grind PCs with the poverty hindrance into the ground. They just can’t get the typical monthly income other players get.
I like how this works for my game. PCs slowly accumulate their shares of wealth. Every month of game time I tell players to dock off half a share for expenses. If a lot of time has passed where they haven’t done anything noteworthy, their wealth is unchanged (they spend their time earning as much as they are spending). PCs with a wealthy edge don’t worry about having to spend ½ a share for upkeep, as they get that automatically and spend it every month. PCs with a poverty hindrance might have to worry about being an idle adventurer for too long as their shares of wealth can slowly be whittled away.
It’s pretty simple. I can quickly translate it to actual dollars when they need to spend something. More importantly, the bookkeeping is manageable and I don’t have to have players counting silver coins each time they hit up an inn for a belly of food, a pint of ale, and a place to rest their head.
Geek Ken 