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(TFT) TFT wargame ideas
From: Rick Smith <rsmith@lightspeed.ca>
I feel this way about a lot of supplements
that map a "vast dwarven city". There are
just not enough interesting details to them.
But if they give you a lot of material (many
residential areas, many mines, the royal
apartments, the furnaces and chemical
reducing vats, etc.), I wouldn't mind adding
some more similar areas if I want them.
Or even just give you one example of a "typical" residential area,
"typical" ore gallery, etc., and give you the parameters likely to
vary and the ranges they are likely to vary over. Let the referee do
the work of filling in as much of the map as he thinks he'll need.
Not really, I think. Mines are dangerous,
& they don't get healthier for being left
'fallow'. I'm a science / engineering geek,
an adventure that spent a lot of time talking
about air pressure, air flow, sewage, heat
flow, flooding control, etc, would be major
cool.
I started describing some solutions to some of this a while ago on
the list, but wasn't sure there was much interest. (And I'm
definitely not up to the calculations to support my assumptions
there.)
If you have running water the problem is
simple. Dump your tailings bit by bit in a fast
river and they will move down stream and form
big sand banks when the river leaves the
mountains.
Well, true, though the river flow rate will (indirectly) limit your
tunnelling rate. Could even do this in an underground stream, if you
were *really careful* not to plug it up somewhere downstream. :-)
I note there was a dammed-up lake at the entrance to Moria, apropos this idea.
Also, if the Dwarves are big users of chemistry or alchemy to refine
metals, they could dispose of toxic waste in the river flowing down
to the elvish forest.... hm. Is this where their long-standing enmity
comes from?
In any case, a big dwarven underground colony is going to have to be
a net importer of hops, as far as I can tell. No good way around
that. :-)
Really I think that you will end up with a
separate game in any case. Unless you make
the wargame REALLY complicated most of the
fine effects that you want your party to
give will just wash out. However this is
exactly the feed back I am looking for:
Check! Mark wants the party to have an effect
- - keep scale large and make sure that there
is chrome that the players can affect things...
I'm hoping it need not be *too* complicated. Certainly it would be
possible to make much of the "chrome" optional in the basic game.
For example, have several categories of magic for each unit. Ratings
in each category for the party would depend on which spells and how
many spells the wizards have.
Information Magic (depends on Far Sight, Trance, etc.)
Tactical Magic (Teleport, Trip, Drop Weapon, Rope, etc.)
Protective Magic (Fresh Air, Blur, IQ (disbelieves) etc.)
Summoning Magic (Illusion, Summon 7-Hex Dragon, etc.)
Attack Magic (Missile Spells, Fire, Curse, etc.)
Chemical/Alchemy (Number of throwable potions carried)
There would be similar ratings for non-magical attributes:
Mobility (Running, adjMA, Swimming, Climbing)
Protection (average hits stopped by "front line" half of party)
Ranged Attack (Missile Weapons skills, missile weapons)
Attack Value (Average hits/attack)
Awareness (Acute Hearing, Alertness, etc.)
Tactics (Tactics, strategy, common language, Diplomacy)
Healing (Physicker, Master Physicker, carrying first aid gear)
A *normal* game unit would have mediocre values in each category,
pre-assigned on the counters (or just standardized for a unit of that
nation).
The counter could have a finite set of status states like "Combat
ready", "weakened", "broken", "routed", and "slaughtered", maybe
denoted by a colored marker placed on top of the counter. At the
conclusion of the battle, there'd be a table that shows effects on
individual characters based on final unit status for a party unit.
The Combat Results Table would be arranged so that each attack would
result in a reduction of <n> steps on the status line, where <n> is
determined by a die roll, and probably by some "standard" extenuating
factors like units combining 2 to 1 or 3 to 1 in an attack, terrain,
etc.
For normal game units, that'd be it. The Chrome would come in the
form of a set of modifiers, based on relative ratings in various
categories. For example, a unit with a high enough "Ranged Attack"
value could engage without being adjacent. A unit with a "Tactical
Magic" value sufficiently higher than their opponents might do 1 or 2
extra steps of damage. A unit with Chemical/Alchemy values might be
able to do 2 extra damage *unless* the target had sufficient
Protective Magic. A unit with Attack Value less than or equal to the
target's Protection might do 2 fewer steps of damage, and so on.
That kind of approach would condense the chrome down into a table or
list of modifiers, which would generally be ignored unless a party
was present. Or unless some highly specialized units were present,
e.g. Wood-Elven scout units (high values for Information Magic,
Awareness, Mobility, Ranged Attack)
You could of course make a block game with
units representing very small units, but as
the unit size shrinks, you get more and more
direct observation of the enemy and the fog
of war you get from block games becomes less
important / realistic. Also if you have a
big battle with each unit being 50 men, then
you can end up with a LOT of blocks.
Maybe not, in a cavern. You could maybe hear units a ways away, but
telling what their composition is might be harder. But for the
battlefield or the castle, true.
In a hex and cardboard game, it is easy to
add new units. (I added plenty of new units
to my OGRE / GEV set.) The players can cut
out some card stock, draw a counter for their
squad, and a few game sessions later (after
paying to have their wizard be taught a bunch
of new, high IQ spells) upgrade the magic
level for their squad from a 'D' to 'C' by
tossing the old counter and adding a new one.
This is a major advantage to hex and cardboard,
the expense is less and it is easier to modify.
Blocks, with stickers for the sides? Include a few sheets of
laser-printer-safe sticker blanks, and a CD of .pdf's of various
things the players might want to add to their blocks?
Now a days, simple
rules are important as I may only play a game
a couple times a year and relearning tough
rules every time is a pain.
Seconded.
However, a goal of this game is that a small
group of tough fighters can affect a battle
with several hundred people on a side (in at
least a small way). If you want to be able to
detect that THIS squad has a better wizard and
THAT squad has awesome archers you need some
fine grained rules.
See above. Good protection values, good healing, and high attack
values could make a non-magical unit pretty tough. Likewise for high
enough tactical magic.
I have more to write but I'm out of time
right now. Any comments?
A game that can model a battle with say 200 on a side, with unit size
around 10, would be manageable, I'd think. If it could be expanded by
buying two sets and placing them side-by-side (and so on), it could
scale up that way. Still gets to be a hassle for a really big battle,
I guess.
From: "David Peterson" <peterson@vigyan.com>
I did a quick scan for servicable blocks under the catagory of Math
manipulatives. Here are a couple of links to get you started.
Perhaps not perfect but with possibilities...
http://www.learningthings.com/items.asp?Cc=UNIFIX
http://www.teachingatozcatalog.com/product_info.php?products_id=10470&osCsid=1bd21e6ccbf529b3ab1b26c7b416e786
And from the same company:
http://www.teachingatozcatalog.com/index.php?cPath=196_203&osCsid=1bd21e6ccbf529b3ab1b26c7b416e786
These (Cuisenaire rods) have very good geometry and a nice feel to
them, but are pretty small to have pictures on the sides. And they
are not cheap.
--
- Mark
Cell Phone: 210-379-4635
office: 210-522-6025
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