The Gaming Den

Proposed political map:



I also have one without words/arrows/borders.

The basic idea is that lots of "barbarians" are invading because they live on the leeward side of the mountain, which is deserty and you like on the windward side, which is quite fertile.

How's this for a win condition: Make all the people invading your country leave. Once all of them are dead or have gone to some other country, you win.

It's a matter of diet. Everyone in Tugnali eats seal blubber, fishes and fresh vension regularly. Unlike most groups, everyone gets a good share protein in Tugnali and the nobles aren't half a head taller and twice as buff as a peasant. This means that the peasants have alot more rights and protecti...

What's the bit of land south of the mountain but east of you? Some other kingdom or maybe two of them? Another kingdom adds some dipolomatic aspects to the game, either getting allies or someone invading when you are weak. You could have one state on the far east peninsula who you trade with alot an...

A peninsula allows for overland invaders. I think that's good for something. Otherwise, you can do something like Greece, where you have a peninsula or two with a bunch of islands with forts around the mainland. Perhaps not Greek climate, though.

They aren't. I should have made it more clear. They make the laws and are exempt from taxes. Normal citizens have a limited amount of stuff they can own above which their property gets taxed extremely heavily. Nobles keep everything they earn. Basically, it's like being the mayor, the head of the fi...

May as well draw up a map.

Tugnali: When Glaciers Attack Lay of the Land: Tugnali is located on a freezing cold coastline, covered in glaciers and ice shelfs. The beaches are rocky with high cliffs and loose stones scatter the landscape. It is almost constantly snowing and blizzards are an every day event in the winter. The ...

1. Sun Tzu said: We may distinguish six kinds of terrain, to wit: (1) Accessible ground; (2) entangling ground; (3) temporizing ground; (4) narrow passes; (5) precipitous heights; (6) positions at a great distance from the enemy. 2. Ground which can be freely traversed by both sides is called acces...

That one is pretty close to the starting assumption. The only reason you have an army is that the King is taking advantage of you being among the best people he has and directing you to places where that involves Leadership and Tactics as much as Armed Combat: Swords and Horsemanship. You don't hav...

Having it so that 1/2 of the players run the barbarian side of things and 1/2 of the players run the knights side of things would make for a pretty fun variation. Other possible variations include: Three Musketeers mode: The players do not get an army. The enemy does. Players start with strong posit...

My take on it: Incorporeal undead can, for the most part, only interact with and be seen by other incorporeal undead*. They also try to suck the life out of whatever they ate in life. They normally can't attack the living, though. Herbivores cause a kind of blight in plants and are hated. Carnivores...

How do the boats made from water float in water? Is it magically warmed in order to make it less dense than outside water, or is it ice, or does it float with water magic?

Do you mind explaining that? I posted a wiki link a long while back on the topic: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shell_theorem To quote the relevent bit: Isaac Newton used shell theorem to show that: * A spherically symmetric body affects external objects gravitationally as though all of its mass wer...

I'd also say none of it, but for a completely different reason. Base leadership would be stuff like speeches to raise morale, embolden your troops or inspire them to get the fortifacations around the village you're defending built quicker. You make a leadership check and that's the results. Then you...

Some of the time, things should work like that. Some of the time, no. Being able to count on enemies missing in situations like that robs them of the courage being displayed and turns into a weird (kind of cool, though - beats any D&D social skills) set of opposing Charisma-based checks. Obviou...

Because while Arturius is gritty heroism, the appropriate response to this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDALH0yRM1Y&feature=related (about 7:50) is "Wow. What courage." not "What idiots." That is definately heroic. And it also worked exactly like I said it should. The cove...

As for the "taking a spear for Bob" thing, that could be handled with a reputation mechanic. If you are known for protecting your troops and risking your life to save theirs, you will get a bonus when leading them. It doesn't effect that battle, but the knowledge that their commander is a ...

I want heroism to be successful in winning battles, even if it means dieing and not surviving the battle.

It's possible to have tragedy and while also risking your life be mechanically viable.

I would like this to be a game I can play without having to screen the players too extensively. One where the desired results follow naturall from the ruleset.

Elennsar, you're trying to make something that exists on two levels. On one level, you have a story about heros defending against barbarans heroically, with bravery beyond that call of duty and self sacrifice and sometimes dieing for their homeland. It's supposed to be interactive: the players choos...

There's a reason that ambushing is frowned on and regarded as a Bad Thing, and it isn't that you get -5 to hit when ambushing. You don't get a -5 to hit from ambushing. Troops get a -5 morale penalty from being led by a coward who ambushes people and sulks around in the night. You refrain from ambu...

As for the morale penalty - I'm not against something like that. What I am against is setting things up so that min-maxing is -encouraged-. You have me backwards. I am saying that we should strive to create a system in which asking yourself "What is the best way to min-max this?" and aski...

Roy: That isn't helping. You have good points, but the tone you are using to express them is going to make Elennsar unwilling to listen to you. Elennsar: I disagree with your assessment that games should be balanced around players not trying to break the system. That design pardigram results in stuf...

If we allow the players to get a new character when the a current one dies, they will do exactly that. And with 36 battles and 80 charecters, the players will be able to have two knights die per battle and still win the game. If we don't want that to happen, we need to create rules to prevent it.