Dragon Warriors

A discussion forum for the Dragon Warriors RPG and related works
It is currently Thu Mar 28, 2024 2:50 pm

All times are UTC




Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 6 posts ] 
Author Message
PostPosted: Sat Jan 24, 2015 6:19 pm 
Offline
10th Rank
10th Rank
User avatar

Joined: Tue Jan 13, 2015 12:17 pm
Posts: 1778
Profession: Barbarian
In the 4th book skills of the almighty we see some skills for 8th rank characters, these are still advanced rules for individuals. However I do feel that there are some things that could be covered. In book 6 we see rules for ship points, storm damage and the beginnings of some engineer concepts.

But I'm thinking of mass combat rules. After all, combat and mass combat are key elements in the age. In Blood Sword book 2 we find that the Warrior has an advantage in directing soldiers against some undead army. Surely in earlier ranks, maybe a 4th rank Barbarian has some 'people' skills to stop hotbloods failing their morale check?

I'm not saying we do the super hero skills like leap 10ft or a new barbarian 'spell' WARCRY that causes enemies to take a morale check... (that just came up as an idea actually....) ...but maybe 10th rank skills for LEADERSHIP where a Barbarian can impose his will on others, like a COMMAND spell that only works on other Barbarians. Depending on the request, it could be demanding a ceasefire in the first round to pacify everyone for one round so that talks can be made.


Maybe there is an 10th rank Knight 'spell' equivalent related to logistical matters since this profession should never be short on hardware. Perhaps it would be like a request for sanctuary in the middle of an ongoing battle, a RENOWN spell where even foreign fighters will extend a measure of good etiquette despite events that took place. A way to inspire trust based on a Knights reputation (rank) that forces armies to retire.

Taking a lot of inspiration from the few movies I've seen. But maybe this is where the Looks score comes into its own, if you survive to 10th rank and beyond. Sa'Aknathur was a high level sorcerer, and it seems his name would've been known throughout the planes of existence... I'm not saying that he was a good looking guy but maybe it helps....

_________________
Speech!





And so the show begins!!!
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/dwp ... ssages/640


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Sat Jan 24, 2015 11:11 pm 
Offline
Admin/Moderator
Admin/Moderator
User avatar

Joined: Sun Jan 11, 2015 4:38 pm
Posts: 690
Location: Birmingham, UK
Profession: Sorcerer
Mass combat rules, engineering rules, etc., start to turn DW from a role-playing game into a resource management game or a wargame. Which is fine if that's what you like, and there are plenty of those kinds of games out there with rulesets that inform that style of play.

I toyed with my own version of mass combat rules that treated units of various types of soldiers (cavalry, archers and footmen, basically) as 'characters', with Health Points, Attack scores, etc. It kinda worked OK for basic mass combat (I put them together so that the player characters could mobilise a village to stand against raiders). The player's character was then a unit on the battlefield, rather than an individual person - although a Knight (or whoever was leading the unit) could still influence the unit's abilities by making various warcraft skill checks. I'll polish them and add them to the Cobwebbed Forest library in due course, but it's not a priority because I'm unlikely to use them again. What I found is that the whole session became about one big combat that was, in essence, no different from a combat between two characters, but a lot less personal to the players and a lot less meaningful to the players' story.

Combat-heavy sessions squander the beauty of RPGs, differentiated as they are from their computerised cousins by fostering creativity, collaborative story-telling, mystery and exploration in a social occasion.

Storms and ship points are something that you mention in the above post, too, but the characters have no control over storms and ship damage, so I see those elements as within the narrative control of the GM, not something to be rolled randomly.

Again, these things just come back to people's preferred styles of play and whilst i tend to shy away from combat-heavy adventures, I know there are other valid ways to play DW. Although I would also question that any skills of the mighty that are incorporated into DW to give the fighting professions optional skills for use in mass battles may be considered a waste of a skill pick by players unless the campaign is heavily weighted toward mass combat, in which case why are you playing DW and not a wargame...? Or, play DW for the role-playing-y elements, and play a different game to resolve the mass combat.

_________________
Cobwebbed Dragon (Lee)

https://www.cobwebbedforest.co.uk/
https://www.dragonwarriors.uk/
https://twitter.com/CobwebbedDragon
Now on YouTube!


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Sun Jan 25, 2015 12:25 am 
Offline
10th Rank
10th Rank
User avatar

Joined: Tue Jan 13, 2015 12:17 pm
Posts: 1778
Profession: Barbarian
Perhaps some additional leadership skills that are applied as default rather than selected. Possibly stuff like forced march which improves on their map moving skills, doesn't help with a mixed party, but a group of barbarians should be able to travel faster overland, stuff that Assassins wouldn't really bother with. A variation of 'track' which is more like 'pathfinding'.

I think 'train warhorse' is a default skill right? I think its mentioned in the hippogriff rules in book 4.

We could add some basic sapper skills. Maybe for certain barbarian types that live in the jungle, stuff to help them conceal in their own environment, survival skills, stuff that allow them to spend 10-20 days in the wild whilst recovering from wounds. Could be their native terrain.

Just thoughts, the barbarian could be more distinct. Perhaps similar rules for Elementalists who seem to originate from the less civilized parts of the lands of legend....

_________________
Speech!





And so the show begins!!!
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/dwp ... ssages/640


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Sun Jan 25, 2015 2:51 am 
Offline
7th Rank
7th Rank
User avatar

Joined: Fri Jan 23, 2015 9:25 pm
Posts: 445
Profession: Sorcerer
When you've been gaming for as long as most of us on this forum have, I think you will have tried virtually every possible approach to things like mass combat. In DW I've tried large scale combats as everything from full wargames (using rules from Warhammer), managed by the players, to simple melees like any other, but in the context of the whole battle. My philosophy nowadays is to treat a large battle like any other world event, with the overall outcome largely known in advance by the GM and only changing if the players' own actions warrant it.

But how much influence can PCs actually have on a battle? I think that depends on both how powerful they are, how big the battle is, and what they choose to do. It's the last element that is critical; players might be just mucking in with the levees (minimal overall impact), commanding a body of troops (larger impact, depending on how many troops they're commanding) or really unpredictable impact (if they're acting like "special forces" and trying to assassinate the opposing force commander, or whatnot).

Whatever the PCs are choosing to do, I think this would be handled by the existing rules, either in the form of regular small-scale battles, or as roleplaying exchanges. The characters' social status, appearance, reputation and direct actions will determine how well they perform in commanding troops, and everything from then on would be resolved by the GM. This doesn't mean the GM won't be maybe using some basic wargaming rules "behind the curtain" to help determine the outcome if this isn't something he's already done, but the players should never see that. They will see whatever they would normally see in the fog of war ("suddenly there is a commotion from somewhere beyond your line of site. One of your men shouts out 'the earl has been killed! It's all over!" etc) but have no privileged knowledge.

On the other hand, maybe you want a change of pace for a gaming session one time and decide to make it a big wargame instead of an RPG. Whatever works.

Cheers,

-Kyle


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Sun Jan 25, 2015 3:23 am 
Offline
10th Rank
10th Rank
User avatar

Joined: Tue Jan 13, 2015 12:17 pm
Posts: 1778
Profession: Barbarian
Just a thought. If the Dragwars system was more successful I'm sure we'd see more features. Book 6 had the calendar, literacy and languages, justice system, ship points... I know, rules tend to get in the way of good gaming but if not mass combat what other rules?

I think a terrain system would work, and I haven't seen anything similar in other gaming systems. Perhaps more work on how the looks score can affect npc interactions... maybe an expanded shopping list for higher level players. What about expanding the hireling information, which doesn't seem to have progressed much beyond book 1? Also the morale system, curses, things that came up in later editions, madness....

Is there an area we can expand on? Other geographical regions... expanded armoury?

More information on npc interactions? Adventures based around contact and interaction rather than combat? More underwurldes with puzzles? Riddling creatures? Would there be any point in expanding the critters?

_________________
Speech!





And so the show begins!!!
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/dwp ... ssages/640


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Sun Jan 25, 2015 9:50 am 
Offline
Admin/Moderator
Admin/Moderator
User avatar

Joined: Sun Jan 11, 2015 4:38 pm
Posts: 690
Location: Birmingham, UK
Profession: Sorcerer
Kharille wrote:
Just a thought. If the Dragwars system was more successful I'm sure we'd see more features. Book 6 had the calendar, literacy and languages, justice system, ship points...

Calendar, languages and a justice system are all really valuable social context to DW - something that I think sorely need developing (sourcebooks, cultural guides, whatever you call them!). The focus of the DW setting is Ellesland (with some notable exceptions, like the Warlock and Assassin professions, for example), but there is so much more that could be done to expand on this. Ship points, however, just seem to be rules for the sake of rules.

Kharille wrote:
Perhaps more work on how the looks score can affect npc interactions... maybe an expanded shopping list for higher level players. What about expanding the hireling information, which doesn't seem to have progressed much beyond book 1? Also the morale system, curses, things that came up in later editions, madness....

That's a good list. Renown and social gaming have not really been developed in DW. DW is an old-school RPG, which focused more on exploring underworlds than interactions between PCs and NPCs. I use Guile & Conviction in my own games (http://cobwebbedforest.co.uk/library/abilities.php?qs=guile) to help with this but there's still much that can be done to create game mechanics that support social play.

I'm also all up for there being more consequences for the character's health than just losing HP (some ideas here: http://cobwebbedforest.co.uk/library/perils.php).

Kharille wrote:
Is there an area we can expand on? Other geographical regions...

A big YES to supplements that explore other geographical regions!

Kharille wrote:
expanded armoury?

Not sure about this one, there are only so many AFs and so many combinations of armour bypass and damage. More weapons and armours don't really affect the mechanics, so I'd say if you want people to wear lacquered vines as armour, knock yourself out, but we don't really need to expand the armoury to accommodate that choice. WFRP classed a load of melee weapons as just 'hand weapon' and left it to the players to choose their weapon. I quite liked that - maybe some guidelines on what's a d8 armour bypass and what's a d6, for example, and then the GM can introduce any new weapon he likes according to those guidelines.

Kharille wrote:
More information on npc interactions? Adventures based around contact and interaction rather than combat? More underwurldes with puzzles? Riddling creatures? Would there be any point in expanding the critters?

I'll give my +1 to adventures that focus on interaction rather than combat. Although I'm not necessarily a fan of riddling creatures or more monsters. But, that said, with the dearth of new material being published, I'll take any drop of water in a drought.

_________________
Cobwebbed Dragon (Lee)

https://www.cobwebbedforest.co.uk/
https://www.dragonwarriors.uk/
https://twitter.com/CobwebbedDragon
Now on YouTube!


Top
 Profile  
 
Display posts from previous:  Sort by  
Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 6 posts ] 

All times are UTC


Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 17 guests


You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot post attachments in this forum

Search for:
Jump to:  
cron
Powered by phpBB® Forum Software © phpBB Group