Monday 18 June 2012

Stuff

Based on the 5150:NB rules...

STUFF

Stuff is how we track what a character has, loses, acquires, etc. during their campaign. What is Stuff?
Stuff is anything that the character can use at any time during the game.
Here are examples of various items of Stuff.
  • Weapon.
  • Armour.
  • Backpack.
  • Rope.
  • Horse.
  • Lantern.
  • Wagon.
  • Mirror
  • Flask of Oil
  • Holy Symbol

LIST OF ITEMS

Any list of Items included in Warrior Heroes would be incomplete. There are just too many Items in the world right now let alone in the future. Here's how you can create your Item for use in Warrior Heroes:
  • Decide what the Stuff is.
  • Decide how it works in real and apply it in game terms.
  • That's it.

HOW DO YOU GET STUFF?

You get Stuff in a variety of ways. They are:
  • At the start of the campaign each Star receives three items of Stuff per point of Social Standing.
  • When recruiting your first group you will receive one item of Stuff for each member you do not recruit.
  • Once a month a character gains one item of Stuff.
  • You can find them or take them from characters while on an Encounter
  • You can trade in one item of Stuff for one that can be saved.
  • You can receive Stuff as wages or gifts from other characters.
I'm sure by now some of you resourceful players are thinking of ways to bend the rules to your benefit. Good job! Because the life expectancy in Warrior Heroes is pretty short so enjoy it while you can. Hey, did we mention that the game play is the thing?

HOW DO YOU LOSE ITEMS?

Easy come easy go, here's how you lose Items.
  • Someone takes them from you during an Encounter.
  • Someone robs your Home (page, 85) while you're gone or even there.
  • You get legal troubles and have to give away some of your Items.
  • You give them freely to another character.
  • Or the big one…you get killed.

WHAT CAN I CARRY?

How many Items can a character carry? That depends on the Item. Items are either used with one hand or two hands.
  • Items used with one hand count as one Item for carrying purposes.
  • Items used with two hands count as two Items for carrying purposes.
  • Characters can carry twice their Rep in Items with the following notes:
    • Clothing does not count against carrying limits (armour does!).
    • Packs or duffle bags can hold Items equal to twice the character's Rep. The pack or duffle bag will count as two Items.
    • A sack or belt pouch can carry Items equal to the character's Rep. The sack or pouch will count as one Item.
    • If the Item can carry you, such as a beast of burden, it does not count against the number of Items you can carry and can carry a lot of Items. How many is for you to decide. Just remember that if you lose your vehicle you lose the Items that were inside it.
Over time you can acquire as many Items as you want but you cannot carry them all so choose your Items wisely before each Encounter.

Ailech Harbour - Narrative

This scenario didn't go as well for the heroes!
Properly rolled PEF's (rather than the discretion I'd been using), PEF's set up appropriate distances from the good guy deployment (i.e. even though the table was set up as 6' x 4', I deployed the PEF's properly in a 3' x 3' grid).
There was more on the table than there should have been (I deployed more Black Moon Incarnate demons than I would in a three thousand point Warhammer game), but the heroes warbands together totalled 39 CV!
It didn't help that they effectively activated all the PEF's at once, rather than getting into the enemy and trying to eliminate one PEF before any others got the chance. It also didn't help that their reinforcements didn't turn up, but I got two (which I rolled at 20 CV, i.e. 50% effect rather than rolling). In retrospect I should have brought them on as PEF's and then rolled them up properly, rather than just put them on the table.
In all honesty, it was partly my fault for letting the parties get so powerful (i.e. not kicking ass and taking names earlier) so creating a situation where 130 CV of bad guys was randomly generated and partly the heroes' fault for not getting stuck in quickly enough to eliminate opposition before it got unmanageable.
Even in the aftermath, it's still likely that four or five players are still going to generate around 30 CV without including their stars (which is another 30 CV). I suppose we need to come up with a solution.
We could split the campaign again, but that would mean that scheduling games is harder. That said, if the Northern Group made capturing Menglad their aim, while the Southern Group maintained the objective of retaking Ailech. Anyone could run a Quest campaign, following the rules in the book exactly, and as the stats for the object of each quest are already made up...
We could reboot the campaign, with the current crop of heroes being lost in the Western Mountains and their warbands captured or killed in the city and a new crop of heroes created from the refugees in Fluchtdorf. Even with a reboot though, with 5 or 6 players, even though it is fun, the bad guys rapidly become unmanageable for the referee.
We could just carry on. If I enforce the rules about advancement and on table death properly and generate forces that match the good guy CV, warband and star attrition is going to cut into numbers eventually.
Finally, I could remove Free Will. Without Free Will, bad guys get the charge more often and good guys can't force bad guys to rout so easily. If I removed free will then I wouldn't roll for size of PEF. Each PEF would be 100%. That would mean that the heroes wouldn't be facing down 150% worth of PEF on occasion but also wouldn't be meeting 600% of PEF! As a guide, Sokol Keep (the first game I properly rolled PEF's) had a 200% - 1 CV PEF roll and the Harbour had a 250% PEF roll (both before reinforcements).
I suppose it's over to the other players...