Wednesday, June 24, 2015
Some questions&answers about the Raider
See the original thread on G+ if you want some context for these questions.
Does the Raider PC make a move for his gang in battle AND another one for himself using the regular moves? […]
When the Raider takes advantage of his own gang, and acts as a leader within its ranks, than it usually makes sense that the Raider will roll the move for the Gang and consider the single character as part of the gang action.
In other words: roll just once for example for Engage in Battle, and the Raider is acting within the ranks of the gang. See also pages 123 and 124 (especially 124 the section CHARACTERS’ GANG VS. NPCS’ GANG).
the Player asked me what are his stats relevant in combat […]
The Raider’s stats become relevant in the case he wants to act indipendently.
Now, the advantage to act indipendently is clear: roll with the Raider’s Steel (which might be a higher stat), attack the enemies from two fronts, or even do something else entirely (”while my gang keeps the enemy busy, I help the noble we’re escorting to get back on his horse and run away…”).
If we stick to battle, I usually treat things like this: for everything there’s a price.
If the Raider stays with the gang, they roll together to Engage in Battle, but the Raider is of course always in position to give orders, to get help from his companions, to direct the gang tactics. And the Raider is not outnumbered because he’s part of the gang.
If the Raider moves ‘out of the ranks’, then it depends: does he engage the same enemy? OK, but he’s outnumbered; he’s not part of the gang anymore, just a single guy fighting among a bunch of enemies and friends…
Does he want to give orders when things are getting hard for the gang? OK, but how does he do it if he stepped aside and picked targets with his bow, instead?
in our group there were a raider and a veteran and they were fighting a small gang
That sounds bad for the poor gang of NPCs :-)
is the other character considered to be part of the gang? and if so how about his own moves
He is considered part of the gang only if he ‘gives up’ acting indipendently and stays within ranks.
If the Veteran wants to move out of the ranks and do something else (attack the enemy gang from the flank, pick them from afar with a crossbow, steal something while the enemy gang is busy with the Raider’s gang…), then he’s not in the gang anymore (and does not enjoy the protection of numbers…)
If not part of the gang or doesn’t want to be part of it, does he have to fight the gang using the Face Death move as if he were alone?
Oh, yes, absolutely. Unless he takes the Last Stand move, and then he has an option to fight a gang on equal ground.
Now, the above are important principles, but a bit of flexibility might be in order, in certain cases.
Take in consideration how many characters do you have, and how’s the situation on the battlefield, and the fiction you guys enjoy the most. What is this fight about?
If you need to overcome the enemy by brute force, then I’d stick more to the tactical side, if your Players enjoy that.
But if the fight is about getting some other NPC safely out of trouble, for example, than for sure the focus is more on threats directed to the NPC.
For example: Raider+Gang engage together the enemy, while the Veteran and the NPC run away.
On a 7-9 of the Raider, instead of hitting the gang, I let the NPC gang take the blow but say that a couple of them sneak past the Raider’s gang and are about to chase the Veteran. Raider, what do you do?
Exploring politics in City of Judas
During our playtesting, I played a few sessions with only a couple of characters, and the game went well. Having only two characters of course leaves less room for possible conflicts between them; but the game holds.
In this specific adventure, we decided to explore some political conflicts between the Church of Christ and the Cult of Judas. The Iron Fist worked to convince the two sides to negotiate a truce, and finally both Christians and Judaists sent a couple of negotiators to the location designated for the talks. The characters, a Veteran and a Priest (which in the game is a follower of the Cult of Judas), were in charge of the security of the meeting, which was held in a small fortress half a day out of Jerusalem.
While the four prelates began the negotiations, which lasted for several days, the characters collected evidence of someone trying to sabotage the meeting. In one case, a messenger sent by one of the negotiators was killed while carrying a truce proposal to Jerusalem for approval from the high clergy of the Church of Christ.
Seeking a final proof of the talks being sabotaged, the Priest broke into the rooms of the two negotiators from the cult of Judas. In one trunk, he found ciphered documents but managed to get a sense of what was going on: someone inside the Cult of Judas was subtracting money from the cult, and using it to hire mercenaries. In a previous adventure, in fact, the characters have retrieved a shipment of opium that someone stole from the Church of Judas ‘ and apparently it was an inside job, orchestrated from the same man.
With this final proof in their hands, they confronted the two prelates from the Cult of Judas. They managed to obtain a confession from the guilty one, but not before he managed to poison both the emissaries of the Church of Christ. While the Priest worked to save the lives of the Christians priests and avoided what could have triggered an armed conflict between the two religions, the Veteran managed to stop the traitor from escaping.
We ended the session with the militia of the Cult of Judas escorting away the traitor, while he threatened the members of his own cult of their mistake. And in the next session, those mercenaries indeed could have proved handy when the Book of Q. moved a little army to raid along the southern borders of the Kingdom of Jerusalem… but that’s another story.
So, this was for those who asked for another session report. I chose this one because, in contrast to the first that presented the giant demon, the characters basically had almost no need to resort to violence for the entire session - and it was a great session even for the Veteran which is in theory a ‘tank’ playbook.
This time, our preview image is text-only: it should give you an idea of the basic instincts and GM moves for threats like the Church of Christ and the cult of Judas.
And for those who’re wondering: yes, the little boxes are clickable in the pdf of the manual. I think the entire manual is quite easy to navigate.
If you’re interested in the game, check it out by clicking here.
Facing a giant demon
In our last session of City of Judas, my players faced a Giant Demon:
They’ve been hired by the Christian church to investigate an obscure cult - apparently christian as well - that is raiding villages north of Jerusalem and killing priests. It turned out that the cult is searching for three little girls, born in the same day, and all three named Pax (Peace, in Latin). The girls, as our Sorcerer established, have some kind of significance in a ritual the cult is trying to complete.
The characters (a Barber, a Raider and a Sorcerer) kidnapped the girls to bring them to Jerusalem and protect them, but the demon managed to track them. They refused to let the demon take one of the girls and faced it in combat instead.
The fight was real fun: the Raider (known in our group for refusing to use anything but his own, cursed dice that roll 6- embarrassingly often) finally stepped up and his gang proved decisive in protecting the girls. The Barber, although not best equipped for the fight, did her share. The Sorcerer had a somehow clumsy start, but recovered and contributed to the final victory.
But the fight wasn’t easy: both the Barber and the Sorcerer ended up taking a Debility to survive. The Barber is now limping, and the Sorcerer horribly burned by his own magical fire, which the demon spit back at him.
We’re now on hiatus for some weeks, but the players really enjoyed the session and the final “boss-fight”. They felt all the time like they were facing a possible horrible death - which they did - but finally managed to prevail. We’ll be back in Jerusalem next.
I wonder why the church will now demand that the Iron Fist mercenaries will hand over the little girls to them, and what the characters will do [evil grin]
If you’re interested in the game, check it out by clicking here.
Two pages from the City of Judas manual
Ok, here you can see a couple of snapshots of two pages of the current release of City of Judas.
I hope you’ll like what we did with the artwork!
And, since it’s a PDF release, you’ll be happy to hear it’s full of tiny clickable text-boxes, that will take you right to the pages discussing the related topics…
Simplifying the design
Again about the design process of City of Judas. I’d love to hear your opinions – as fellow game designers and as players as well.
Here is the first part and here the second…
Designing the Playbooks
Designing the Playbooks was very easy at the start. It’s not a coincidence that a lot of AW-hacks begin with Playbooks: they contain a great deal of the game flavor and color, they’re what you hand out to Players, they say who and what the characters (the protagonists of your story) are, they say what they can do, they contain all the Moves with their exciting options and possibilities…
Of course, after the first couple of drafts, things started to get harder: there are a lot of interactions between the Playbooks to consider, there are the various fields of expertise to define, areas where characters can overlap and others where you want to make sure they don’t; there are some things to keep in balance, and others that clearly need to be out of balance so that the game gets rolling. There are Playbooks that feel easier to design and others that feel a bit boring at the start, until you don’t find the way to turn the concept around and give it the right twist.
At this stage, I still thought: alternative playbooks, alternative combat system, but this game is still going to be running as basic Dungeon World. Or perhaps as a Dark Age spin-off, or maybe under AW. It didn’t go exactly that way.
The Counters & their Moves
I liked so much the Health Counter used in the combat system, that I made more Counters.
There was a counter for Gold (how much money the character had), for Equipment (did the character have all the necessary gear?), for Rings (that were the ranking system of the mercenary company of the Iron Fist), for Taint (how much the character’s soul was dark). Some of them were a different take on classic RPG stuff like money and equipment, and others were tied to the setting (the Rings and the Taint).
I was initially afraid to move to so many Counters (and in the end, I simplified this part in my latest design) but the feedback on the SG forum was that indeed this was an interesting feature. All of those Counters had Peripheral Moves associated with it. This lead to a high number of Moves (which is a painful topic I will discuss further in a dedicated paragraph).
The idea behind this, was to avoid tracking static numbers (how many Rings you have, how much money, which exact equipment you have), and instead make all those components to work basically like Stats.
And now, for two totally unrelated questions:
What is your favorite City of Judas playbook? (if you didn’t play it yet, we don’t mind, just tell us which one looks cooler!!)
Have you played and used the Health, Equipment and Spirit counters? Did they make book-keeping easier??