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Post by stevelortz on Jul 16, 2011 12:03:02 GMT -9
A number of people on the boards have talked about their home brewed skirmish rules, and that makes me very curious. I would love to be able to set down with each one of you and play a few games using your systems to see how they work. That's not available, so I'm going to start describing MY home brewed system.
This system was originally designed at the request of Kit Newkirk of the Game Preserve in Indianapolis to promote the sale of some French & Indian Wars figures from The Rusty Scabbard of Kentucky back in the late '80s. Later, I painted up a batch of pirate, Royal Marine and cannibal figures to play with, and I called the resulting game Scurvey Dawrgs! I ran it at GenCon for several years, and one of the high points was when Dave Arneson played! He got a kick out of it.
I took some of the fights described by James Fenimore Cooper in Last of the Mohicans and by Robert Louis Stevenson in Treasure Island, especially the fight at the old stockade, as my models. I figured, if I heard a bunch of players discussing the game they had just finished playing, and it sounded like something Cooper or Stevenson might have written, and the players had fun, then the game was a success.
The game is usually game-master moderated, though two players can have a good time with it as long as they aren't trying to mini-max a system, because there is no system. The first and foremost rule when I run it is: your character can get away with whatever you can convince me he should be able to get away with. This pretty much turns it into a story-telling game rather than a rules-lawyering contest. If two players can amicably agree about things, it can be fun without a moderator.
The second feature I wanted to build into the game was a minimal amount of numbers, abbreviations and acronyms. So characters' qualities and skills are described on the following spectrum: Terrible, Poor, Good, Excellent and Outstanding. Some of you may recognize these categories from quarterly performance reviews, except I substituted "Terrible" for "Needs Improvement"!
Stock skills are few... Fighting Skill and Shooting Skill... though we sometimes throw in something like Seamanship, Navigation, Horsemanship or Scouting skills if the situation calls for it. Other skills can easily be generated on the fly if a spontaneous need arises.
The only numeric value is Hit Points, which usually ranges between 15 and 20 for starting characters (1d6+14 with a possible extra + or - for extraordinary characters).
That's all for this entry. Next time, I'll start posting some of the mechanisms, starting with the sequence of play.
Have fun! Steve
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Post by okumarts on Jul 16, 2011 17:16:35 GMT -9
This sounds delightful. I run a Labyrinth Lord now Pathfinder Boston 1750s campaign. I am also going to get a sister campaign set up in New France. You should come up with army lists to avoid the min/maxing and throw in a few Fog of War/ Strategy cards to spice things up a bit.
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Post by stevelortz on Jul 19, 2011 16:39:58 GMT -9
There are a lot of things I ought to be doing right now, but typing at the computer, conveniently located between the air conditioner and the fan, seems to be the most appealing, given this heat. My wife is usually sitting here working on her book, but she went down to her sister's house to watch TV in HER air conditioning!
There's nothing worth watching on regular TV, so I've got a noir DVD from 1948 on. It's kind of like Treasure Island, but instead of old Flint's crew, the guys out to do violence to each other were former prisoners in a German POW camp, and they're continuing in proto-baby-boom suburbia the conflicts that originated in treachery and betrayal at the POW camp.
Before going into the sequence of play that I use for Scurvey Dawrgs!, I think I'll describe some of the scenarios.
The first scenario I came up with was the fight at the old stockade from Treasure Island using the characters from the book and movie versions. My favorite is the Wallace Beery/Jackie Cooper movie, followed by Robert Newton's portrayal of Long John Silver in the Disney version. I sort of liked the Charlton Heston version, except where he fired a swivel gun from the hip. That destroyed the film's credibility for me. The worst version, IMO, is the Orson Welles version where Long John Silver seems to sit and drone on endlessly in a barely decypherable dialect.
Well, more people wanted to play the game, so the scenario expanded into what I call Dead Man's Isle. It's designed to be played on a large surface like a 4' by 8' sheet of plywood, or some hotel tables pushed together the way they do at conventions, to make a surface about 5' by 8' or so.
I make the island by spreading out a sheet of tan felt and building a volcano near one end by stacking various pieces of the 1" thick green floral styrofoam you can find at hobby shops. At the other end of the table, but closer to the middle than the volcano, is a low hill with the model stockade on it. There are other, smaller hills scattered around the island to provide convenient cover. The island is decorated with a variety of model palm trees and colorful plastic aquarium plants. There is a boulder at the top of the volcano with a heathen idol sitting on it. There is also a cave in the side of the volcano.
There are seven factions in the full blown game: 1. The Dread Pirate Roberts and his crew, 2. Captain Errol Hawkblood and his crew, 3. Viceroy Dwembley with the Royal Marines, 4. Long John Silver and his crew, 5. Black Dog and his crew, 6. the Cannibal King with his tribe, and 7. Ben Gunn with his gang of monkeys.
Each of the leaders has certain objectives, some of which conflict, and some of which would promote cooperation between various parties if they decide to parley, so there can be diplomacy between the players... and BACKSTABBING!
Each crew has 9-12 members. Each figure is named and numbered to correspond to its stats on a roster sheet for each faction. The size of the game can be tailored to the number of players by adding or subtracting factions.
The second scenario I came up with is called Fifteen Men, and is set aboard a ship called The Dead Man's Chest. Fifteen Men is designed to re-enact the mayhem that must have preceded the scene described in The Derelict: Captain Billy Bones, his Song by Young E. Allison. It's played out on a multi-level map of the ship that I drew on butcher paper long before there were tiles for game maps.
There are fifteen figures on the ship, and the game portrays a mutiny gone bad. The object of each character is to be the last man (or what-not) standing. When the game is down to two characters left, I take the action to simultaneous, and the best endings have been when the last two characters kill each other in the last round. Great HUZZAHS! were heard all round!
Each of the figures in Fifteen Men is named and numbered (since they were all taken from the Dead Man's Isle factions), but their stats are kept on individual three-by-five cards instead of roster sheets. At the beginning of the game, the stat cards are shuffled and dealt to the players. When a player loses all his characters the cards are redistributed so as many players as possible can stay in the game as long as possible.
Some of my students came up with a scenario of their own involving factions that they made up based on the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. The various crews are competitively trying to loot an ancient abandoned city of the natives. But there is a witch doctor involved, who can turn the casualties into zombies. YIKES!
Well, the sun set awhile ago, and it's starting to cool down! More later!
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Post by kiladecus on Aug 5, 2011 17:41:35 GMT -9
For what it's worth, I have been brewing my game for 12 years... its slow-roasted goodness locks in the flavor!
I have played so many games and I steal a little from each one.
The figures have a Speed/Armor rating between 3-5... 3 is 3" movement per activation, as well as a 3+ armor save... same with 4 and 5. A one always misses and a 6 always succeeds.
Each type of weapon has a different "bonus" on a roll of "6." An "Energy" weapon scores a "no save"; "auto/machine" weapons score an extra hit.
Other weapons have a built in bonuses across the board (not just on a "6"). Laser weapons get +3" per range (short, medium, long). Ballisitc weapons get an AP (Armor Piercing) bonus. That means they treat a 3+ armor as a 4+ (meaning the target has to roll a 4 or higher to save instead of a 3 or higher).
Each weapon has a Minimum, Short, Medium, and Long distance (only Artillery, Missiles and Rockets have a minimum range). To hit, the Attacker has to roll a 3+ at Short Range, 4+ at Medium and 5+ at long. I am working on a die that has an arrow on it so that if the Missiles etc. Miss, then they deviate that many inches in the direction the arrow on the die is pointing.
That is a brief overview... there is a lot more to it, but that is the general concepts. Btw, in my game the only thing with a. 2+ save is a tank. I have "Superchargers" that can boost the speed to a 4 (since an armor 2 yields a 2" movement per action).
Speaking of actions, each unit that activates receives two activations. They can move twice, move and fire or fire and move, and in some cases (if carrying a pistol) can fire twice (since all weapons cost the same amount, pistols needed to have a drawing card to compensate for their limited range).
If you care to hear more, let me know! Once I have something more than an outline, I could always send you a copy to playtest, if you were interested!
Thanks for your attention!
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Post by jaggedjaw on Aug 9, 2011 3:36:06 GMT -9
I actualy now want to see a faction for Davy johnes. Aside from that this all sounds really good so far.
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Post by stevelortz on Aug 16, 2011 17:33:26 GMT -9
Here's an example of some of the Character Reference Cards I made to use in the Fifteen Men scenario: Each of the characters is represented on the ship tiles by a painted miniature. There are few salient notes on each card about the associated figure's appearance, to help the players find their figures until they become familiar with the game. These are the same miniatures I use in the Dead Man's Isle scenario. There's a colored dot on each figure's base to make it easy to sort out the factions for the Isle game, though it's every hand for himself on the Dead Man's Chest. Just to make sure a player can identify his or her figure, there's also a number painted on the bottom of each figure's base, in the faction color. That's why there's a color and a number after each character's name on his card. A character's card lists his Fighting Skill, Shooting Skill, remaining Hit Points and any weapons he may start the game with. The skills are described as either Terrible, Poor, Good, Excellent or Outstanding. I've studiously tried to avoid all acronyms, abbreviations and abstract alpha-numeric descriptors that I possibly could. If I hear a couple of players describing the game they just played, I think it ought to be intelligible to a person not familiar with the game. Of course, I couldn't help using a numeric indicator for Hit Points Remaining. Some games make extensive use of character reference cards to pack information into the game, and look attractive. I like to keep attention focused on the miniatures, though I would probably put photos of the figures on the cards if I had the technical skill to do so. There's quite a bit of backstory to the characters. For instance, Blue Belly is the lousiest fighter in the game, much lousier than his skills might indicate. Captain Errol Hawkblood and the Dread Pirate Roberts are arch-enemies. Long John Silver watches out for Young Jim Hawkins. And Monty always begins each Fifteen Men scenario with his drawers down, relieving himself over the side at the beakhead. None of these things are written down. They are a matter of tradition that has grown up around memorable incidents in previous games. Sometimes, instead of expending an action to pull his pants up, Monty has leaped right into the fighting with his drawers around his ankles, and spent the entire game that way! More later! Have fun! Steve
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Post by stevelortz on Aug 16, 2011 19:28:31 GMT -9
Here are the rest of the characters for the Fifteen Men scenario: Have fun! Steve
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Post by stevelortz on Aug 20, 2011 17:04:59 GMT -9
There's another character who shows up from time-to-time in the Fifteen Men scenario, even though I never made a card for him... Old Nicodemus... the shark who followed the Hispaniola in the Wallace Beery/Jackie Cooper version of Treasure Island (my all time favorite version).
Have fun! Steve
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Post by stevelortz on Aug 21, 2011 14:07:55 GMT -9
The first few games of Scurvey Dawrgs! I ran were set on Dead Man's Isle with about a half-a-dozen players controlling about 60 or so characters. I would have the players roll for initiative to see who would go first, then play would progesss around the table. At least two of the players were involved with every combat, since resolution requires participation for both the attacking and the defending figures, but I still wasn't happy. The sequence seemed too slow and too predictable.
Then I had the pleasure of playing in a French Foreign Legion game run by Duke Siefried at one of the Emperor's Birthday Conventions. He was using The Sword and The Flame rules with their sequencing system that uses a deck of standard playing cards to determine the order of the players. But Duke had adapted the rules to run a game with multiple players on each side.
I liked the idea of random sequencing introduced by the use of cards, but I didn't like having to translate from stock poker deck terms to game-specific terms. So I split some 3X5 cards into a batch of 3X2.5 cards and made a deck, with the name of a faction leader on each card. I would shuffle the deck, and them draw cards to tell which player would go next. After I exhausted the deck, I would reshuffle it and start over.
To spice it up a little, I put two cards in the deck for each faction, so nobody can tell in the earlier stages of the turn who is going to come up next. Sometimes a player gets two opportunities in a row. Toward the end of the turn, the players can do a little card-counting to strategize, which is okay, because I let them engage in all the diplomacy they want to do.
For the Fifteen Men scenario, I simply use thirty cards, with each character having 2 cards in the deck.
If I'm running a game, and not playing in it, I am "The Old Salt". I don't just draw the cards, I narrate what has just happened, in a pirate dialect. "Arrrrrgh, mayte! Belay yer blubberin' an' cut bait!" I encourage the players to narrate what their characters are doing in a similar style. For some odd reason, the Dread Pirate Roberts usually winds up speaking in a phoney French accent, like Inspector Cluseau!
Have fun! Steve
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Post by okumarts on Aug 21, 2011 14:25:06 GMT -9
I like the way this is all coming together. I really like the idea of narrating in pirate voice. Arrr.
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Post by stevelortz on Aug 22, 2011 12:16:01 GMT -9
The Dead Man's Chest scenario was inspired by this poem: www.boundingmain.com/lyrics/derelict.htmThe intent of the game is to narrate in detail how the Dead Man's Chest came to be in the condition in which it was found. At the beginning of the game, I set the figures on the tiles (according to a watch, quarter and station bill I drew up), and deal out the character reference cards to the players. As play progresses, if a player has all of his characters killed, and other players still have multiple characters, the players re-divvy the characters, so each of the players stays in the game for as long as possible. The stated object is to be the last man standing, but when there are only two characters left, I take the action simultaneous. The best endings are where the last two characters kill each other on the last turn. More later! Have fun! Steve
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Post by stevelortz on Aug 23, 2011 11:13:26 GMT -9
Well... I've been sneaking up on posting the mechanisms I use for running Scurvey Dawrgs!...
But there's something I need to make clear before hand, or some people might be disappointed by the seeming paucity of "crunch".
A set of rules is not a game. Written material is not a game. Figures and dice are not a game. Fancy illustrations are not a game. A game is an event. It is the actual play. Rules and books list and detail possibilities. Figures and dice support the game by limiting some of the possibilities. A game is the actualization of possibilities.
A game may be played once, in which case there is a singular actualization. Or it may be played over and over, in which case there are a number of unique actualizations.
The "product" of playing a game is the memory of what took place. A game is the construction of a story.
Role playing games were originally a very liberating experience because they allowed us, as audience, to participate in the story by making decisions for some of the characters. Story was no longer an experience of passive reception. It was no longer taking whatever the story teller wanted to dish out, but rather story became a social, collaborative endeavor.
I think it was unfortunate when the adventure game community decided to call story "fluff", as if the game consisted of its rules. Story is the real substance of games, and all the rules and mechanisms should support the generation of stories, or in my opinion, they should be scrapped.
I've got to go. More later.
Have fun! Steve
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Post by nikloveland on Aug 23, 2011 11:50:35 GMT -9
Well spoken!! If I could I would +1 mod your post!
{I guess just consider it so...}
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Post by stevelortz on Aug 23, 2011 16:49:03 GMT -9
When I, as The Old Salt, am running a game of Scurvey Dawrgs!, the primary, most fundamental rule is this: Your character can get away with trying to do ANYTHING that you can convince me he should be able to try doing! Even if it means bending the mechanisms.
The criterion I use in judging is what story-value the attempt is likely to add to the game.
And a character can win a game by dying, if he does so in a spectacularly glorious, redemptive manner.
If I am running characters in the game, or if people are playing without a game master, we discuss the possibilities in a generous manner, bearing in mind Mark Twain's adage, "Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't."
NO rules-lawyering!
Have fun! Steve
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Post by cowboyleland on Aug 23, 2011 18:49:51 GMT -9
I love your philosophy of gaming (but I still want to see the "crunch")
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Post by stevelortz on Aug 23, 2011 23:42:12 GMT -9
I love your philosophy of gaming (but I still want to see the "crunch") The crunch is coming! Minimalist as it is, I like to think it has elegance. I've got to get back to bed. I start work on my master's degree in the morning. It's like Christmas eve! Have fun! Steve
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Post by cowboyleland on Aug 24, 2011 4:05:33 GMT -9
I had a great time at grad school. On the other hand, it was one of the few times in my life I had no gaming group. Savour every moment.
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Post by cowboyleland on Mar 15, 2012 11:57:15 GMT -9
Hello Again!
We let this conversation drop about the time I went sailing on a brigantine for a week in Lake Ontario. Great time! Life has gone on and I am about 3/4 done two rough and ready brigantine models I am building out of cereal boxes. I plan to crew them with some 2.5d pirates and then have a duel at sea. I really like the ship movement in the "Spanish Fury, Sail!" game from "Perfect Captain" and I've looked the Steve Jackson's "Evil Stevie's Pirate Game." I'm also somewhat tempted to home brew a "Song of the Salty Seas." I also think something like the "Showdown" rules from Pinnacle could be good. As you can see, I'm kind of suffering from a paralysis by analysis. Anyway, all that to say, I'd really like to know about the mechanics of "Salty Dawrgs."
How's grad school treating you?
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Post by stevelortz on Mar 15, 2012 13:40:38 GMT -9
Hello Again! We let this conversation drop about the time I went sailing on a brigantine for a week in Lake Ontario. Great time! Life has gone on and I am about 3/4 done two rough and ready brigantine models I am building out of cereal boxes. I plan to crew them with some 2.5d pirates and then have a duel at sea. I really like the ship movement in the "Spanish Fury, Sail!" game from "Perfect Captain" and I've looked the Steve Jackson's "Evil Stevie's Pirate Game." I'm also somewhat tempted to home brew a "Song of the Salty Seas." I also think something like the "Showdown" rules from Pinnacle could be good. As you can see, I'm kind of suffering from a paralysis by analysis. Anyway, all that to say, I'd really like to know about the mechanics of "Salty Dawrgs." How's grad school treating you? I've been too busy with grad school. I'm going to have to cut my hours because of health problems, but I'm having a lot of fun with the subject matter. I'm on a break right now, and I need to procede with this thread. I'll post some more tonight! Thanks! Have fun! Steve
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Post by cowboyleland on Mar 15, 2012 17:03:22 GMT -9
Sorry to hear about your health problems. They do seem to be coming up all over this board and among my "meat" friends too.
I'm looking forward to reading your rules, but no pressure. Enjoy your break.
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Post by stevelortz on Mar 15, 2012 19:17:11 GMT -9
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