Roleplaying elements in a potential Erfworld game

[Chris Goodwin]

I'm curious as to what everyone's ideas are in this respect. In the comic there are plenty of inter-unit noncombat personal interactions, enough to justify some kind of subsystem that would interact with the known rules but could be ignored in a straight wargame scenario.

The Apocalypse World RPG (players' book may be viewed here -- warning: mature audiences) mechanizes interactions in the way I'm looking at, and which you'd want to do in a theoretically non-GMed game. I'm specifically thinking of the Basic Moves section (page 35 in the PDF viewer or page 72 within the document itself) where interactions can be boiled down to a set of "moves" which are rolled, using what amounts to a combat results table for each, that can have game mechanical effects. In a more general sense I'm not looking at the specific mechanics as written there as much as the general notion of breaking down character interactions into discrete mechanics.

In an Erfworld game, we can use the natural Thinkamancies (Obedience, Loyalty, and Duty) in a mechanical sense to represent things like resistance to turning. As an off-the-cuff, non-worked example: in a parley, when trying to turn another non-prisoner unit to your side (cf the recent Wanda-Jillian interactions), you might roll 1d6. If your unit is a Thinkamancer, spend 1 Juice to add its level; if you roll higher than the target unit's Loyalty score, then its Loyalty and Duty scores go down by 1. If you beat its Loyalty score by 5 or more, then reduce those scores by 3. (You might need to spend Move points to achieve this, similarly to foraging. Also note that this is a slow process; you can't turn another unit to your side in a parley in a single turn.) Using Turnamancy against a prisoner would have a similar table, perhaps with slightly higher bonuses, and a heavier effect to represent a faster timetable.

Comments? Am I completely off-base?

[BLANDCorporatio]

I am intrigued by your ideas and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

Now, mechanizing character interaction seems a far away goal, but sounds interesting.

Also, an Erfworld themed RPG sounds interesting in the first place.

[Chris Goodwin]

I am intrigued by your ideas and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

Now, mechanizing character interaction seems a far away goal, but sounds interesting.

Also, an Erfworld themed RPG sounds interesting in the first place.

Well... I'd try to keep as closely as possible to the Rules As We Know Them, so it would pretty much be a hex-and-counter wargame. Just with some character elements. Though ideally it could be used to play an RPG. I'll plan to do some more development and continue to post here.

[Nihila]

I think that your ideas are very good. Maybe, for a Turnamancer, there should be a base cost to begin turning a unit, then other costs added on if the unit is a Warlord, Caster, Royal, Noble, etc.

Just because a base cost would make it not worth it to turn dozens of infantry, preventing that exploit.

[Chris Goodwin]

Now that I think about it, turning units to your side with Turnamancy is done in the dungeon. Affecting their thoughts (out in the field) would be Thinkamancy. But yeah, at the very least it should be harder (more costly in juice) to turn or affect a higher level unit, or Warlord, Noble, Royal, etc.

And after I had intended not to, I've been thinking about a full on Erfworld RPG. Still using the Erfworld RAWKT (rules as we know them), and in fact there's no reason these rules couldn't be used as the basis for yet another set of Erfworld game rules; this is effectively an Erfworld hex-and-counter wargame, with a single unit per player.

Unit Creation

Spoiler: show

Units would be built up using a formula: (2 x (Combat + Defense) + Move + HP + Specials) x Level. (I consider Defense to be better than HP, therefore it costs more, and Combat should cost about as much as Defense.) This is the unit's upkeep cost, as well as its total "point cost".

(Weird optional rule: Civilians. Civilians are units with no Combat and little or no Defense value. They may have minor Specials, relevant to a profession. For instance, a Farmer might have Natural Dirtamancy, and would improve farm yield. A Builder might have Natural Dollamancy and/or Dirtamancy, usable when upgrading a city. A Miner might have Natural Dirtamancy for mining. This could be taken further; a Breeder might have Natural Turnamancy, for reducing the time it costs to pop a new unit; an Accountant, natural Moneymancy; etc. Note that nothing in the RAWKT precludes any of this...)

Individual player character units are presumed to start as Barbarians, newly popped. Individual Barbarians can form Alliances (or, more appropriately, Hordes) with one another and can, if circumstances are right and all preconditions are met, become a Side.

OABAAB: Once A Barbarian, Always A Barbarian. A unit that has ever been a Barbarian can become a Barbarian again. Either in the usual way (it's side's Capital falls, but the Ruler lives) or if its Ruler is croaked without an Heir.

Hunting: A unit can spend its remaining movement to forage or hunt for provisions. (This can be fairly effective if, for instance, a stack includes one or more units with a much higher movement value than the others.) For every point of movement it has left, the unit can roll 1d10; this is how many shmuckers worth of provisions it finds, which are "consumed" by spending as Upkeep. An animal unit can generate provisions as well (by being killed for meat), depending on what the unit is; medium units (i.e. those without a size Special) generate provisions equal to 1d10 times the unit's hit point value. Heavy units generate 3d10 times hit points; Light units generate 1d5 times hit points. Units can carry an unlimited amount of provisions (including those that can't, for whatever reason, carry their own shmuckers with them, such as non-Warlord Barbarians).

Combat

Spoiler: show

Combat (and other stuff, like Natural Thinkamancy) would be rolled on 1d10, modified by bonus. Results as follows:

Code: Select all

Roll   Result
----   --------------------------------------------------------
2-     Defender does full damage to attacker.  Attacker does no damage. 
3-4    Defender does full damage to attacker.  Attacker does half damage to defender.
5-6    Defender and attacker do full damage to each other.
7-8    Attacker does full damage to defender.  Defender does half damage to attacker. 
9+     Attacker does full damage to defender.  Defender does no damage.


Attacker's bonus adds directly to the roll; half the defender's bonus counts as a penalty to the attacker's roll.

"Full damage" in this case is the unit's Combat Stat. Damage is reduced by the unit's Defense stat. Anything left comes out of the unit's Hit Points.

If "defender does damage" results would make no sense (such as in an Archery or other ranged attack) they may be ignored. However, if the target has its own Ranged ability, it may be considered to "return fire" if it can, and these results would then be applicable.

If a stack contains a unit with the Commander Special, it is considered led, but gains no additional bonus. If the unit leading the stack has the Leadership special, the stack gains an additional bonus equal to the leader's level. A Warlord is considered a Commander, but this applies to all allied stacks in an entire hex; if the Warlord also has the Leadership special, its bonus applies to all of its side's stacks in the hex.

Both Warlord and Leadership are assumed to include Commander, but neither Warlord nor Leadership necessarily include the other.

Stack bonus:

Every unit in a stack gains the bonus in combat.

Code: Select all

Units   Bonus
-----   -----
1       +0
2-3     +1
4-7     +2
8+      +3


[Azgrut]

Your combat system is very flawed. I mean, if you have a stack with a single marbit being attacked by a full stack of high level dwagons, then there is a 20% chance the marbit will win the combat because the attacker rolled 1 or 2...

Sounds a bit silly neh?

-edit- I see there are bonusses involved. Render my opinion naught.

[Nihila]

Well, even if we think about a full marbit stack attacking, if the marbits win, they deal a small amount of damage when compared to a dwagon's hits. If the dwagons deal even half damage, the marbits probably all croak.

However, I think that even in a total rout, unless a side has, say, a full stack of led heavies attacking a few light infantry, the winner of a combat should take some damage as well.

[Chris Goodwin]

With a stack of 8 led heavies... bonus of +3 for the stack, let's assume a level 3 Warlord with Leadership in the hex, for another +3... versus a "few" light infantry (let's say 4, for +2, unled)... attacker takes half that as a penalty, so -1... we're looking at a +5 minimum. If the d10 comes up a 1 (+5 = 6 on the combat results table), the attacker takes full damage. On a 2-3 (7-8 on the CRT) the attacker takes half damage, and 4+ (9+), the attacker takes no damage. 70% chance of no damage at all, another 20% for half damage. 100% chance of the defenders taking full damage from the attackers, and at 2 heavies per light, they'll get stomped. (Edit: 'M'thinking that Heavy units can't multi-attack smaller units. So the marbits don't have to worry about facing two megalogwiffs apiece...)

I'm.... quite comfortable with that, actually.

Now, if it's the light units attacking the heavies.... their bonus is +2 for stack size, with penalty of -3 (half the defenders' +6 bonus), for a net -1... there's a 10% chance the light units will take no damage at all (only on a 10 on a d10, for a 9 on the CRT), a 20% chance they'll take half damage (9-8 on d10), and a 70% chance they'll take full damage. 30% (1-3 on d10, for 2- on CRT) they do no damage at all, 20% (4-5 on d10) they do half damage, and 50% (6+) they do full damage.

Hmmm. Is half the defender's bonus as a penalty too little? Should it be situational -- i.e. if the defender's stack outnumbers the attacker's stack by 2-1 or greater, the attacker takes the defender's full bonus as a penalty? In this case, given the same scenario as above, the light units as attackers would be well and truly booped. With a net -4, only on a 9-10 on d10 (20%; 5-6 on the CRT) would they do full damage, on a 7-8 (3-4 on the CRT) they'd do half damage, and and on a 1-6 on d10 (2 or less on the CRT) they do no damage at all. Given that they're unled, when it's their turn they will attack, no choice, and, as I said, they are booped.

Oh -- this reminds me. Need to edit the "1-2" result on the CRT to be "2 or less". (Done.)

Edited to add: Also remember "damage" is the unit's Combat score, and the target unit reduces this by its Defense score. If the marbits are only doing, say, 3 hits on full damage, and the heavies have a Defense score of 4 or higher, then the marbits are doing no damage, no matter what.

[Nihila]

I'm also quite comfortable with that particular example.

But in a more generic example, medium vs. medium, the system becomes less realistic.

With a stack of 8 unled infantry versus another stack of 8 unled infantry, if the attacker's Combat is greater than the defender's Defense and the Hits are equal, the attacker has better odds to kill off the defender. With a stack bonus of +3, subtracting half of the defender's three, the attacker will beat the defender more than the defender will beat the attacker. I'm not sure I'm comfortable with that.

Worse, if the defender's Defense is greater than the attacker's Combat, the attacker cannot win.

Maybe an example of a unit exploiting this will make it clearer.
Generic Defensive Unit
Combat: 5
Defense: 19
Move: 0 (Garrison)
HP: 2
Specials: None
Cost: 50

Now, I'm not sure if this a low cost or high cost, but not much is going to scratch a led stack of these, though they won't be fighting back all that well.

[Chris Goodwin]

Hmmm, ok. How about something like...

Generic Field Infantry
Combat: 6
Defense: 5
Move: 6
HP: 8
Cost: 36

One stack of 8 vs. one stack of 8, unled.

Attacker has +3, defender has +3. Attacker's penalty is half of three... round in favor of defender? -2. For a net bonus of +1.

CRT in this instance:

Code: Select all

Roll   Result
----   --------------------------------------------------------
1      Defender does full damage to attacker.  Attacker does no damage. 
2-3    Defender does full damage to attacker.  Attacker does half damage to defender.
4-5    Defender and attacker do full damage to each other.
6-7    Attacker does full damage to defender.  Defender does half damage to attacker. 
8+     Attacker does full damage to defender.  Defender does no damage.


For, 10%, 20%, 20%, 20%, and 30%, respectively. Defender has a 50% chance of doing full damage to the attacker, while the attacker has a 70% chance of doing full damage to the defender. In this matchup, half-damage attacks are irrelevant (they bounce off the other side's Defense). (Bug?)

This is going to be a slow fight.

...I may have been proceeding from an unstated assumption, that a combat "round" consists of all of Side A's attacks being resolved, followed by a counterattack by Side B (treating Side B as attackers and Side A as defenders, thus flipping the bonuses and probabilities). I don't have enough experience with hex-and-counter games to know whether that is typical, or (if not) whether it's even desirable. (I see the wiki alludes to this.) (A Turn would contain an indeterminate number of rounds; essentially, the Turn can't end until after the combat is over.)

And, perhaps another unstated assumption: the Combat stat is damage only; the Defense stat reduces damage; Bonuses apply only to "to hit" rolls.

And a third: each unit resolves its own attacks separately.

[Nihila]

Fair enough. If it works that way, the system is fine.

On the thread's original topic, I would be interested in a roleplay/strategy game.

It sounds like a very entertaining concept, and I think would help increase faithfulness to the known Erfworld rules.

[Chris Goodwin]

Fair enough. If it works that way, the system is fine.

Well, whether it does or not remains to be seen. I'm by no means a perfect game designer; I'll have to play with it a bit. You did point up the potential for exploitive builds, which I appreciate.

On the thread's original topic, I would be interested in a roleplay/strategy game.

It sounds like a very entertaining concept, and I think would help increase faithfulness to the known Erfworld rules.

Ok. That means I have more work to do....

[Nihila]

Well, from my limited knowledge, it should work fine. And, exploitive builds are still possible, but the build earlier had huge disadvantages, including no move, and if units ganged up on one of them, exit defender.

About Warlords:
In the comic, I think that it is said somewhere that Warlords, except Chief Warlord, only give bonuses to the stacks they lead.

Also, were you thinking that any led stack could focus its damage onto one enemy unit?

[Chris Goodwin]

Well, from my limited knowledge, it should work fine. And, exploitive builds are still possible, but the build earlier had huge disadvantages, including no move, and if units ganged up on one of them, exit defender.

True.

About Warlords:
In the comic, I think that it is said somewhere that Warlords, except Chief Warlord, only give bonuses to the stacks they lead.

Oops! Yes, that is correct.

Also, were you thinking that any led stack could focus its damage onto one enemy unit?

Yes. I think unled stacks probably just go randomly, and when their current opponent goes down they switch to one at random (probably to one side or the other). But with a led stack, you could say, "Joe, Bob, and Fred, focus on #1 over there. The rest of you, hit #2."

...Hmmm. Should Defense stop each attack, or the total attacks received in the round? If it were each attack, the 19 Defense guy is effectively invulnerable. If not, he could eventually be overwhelmed by numbers. I'm not sure I was thinking about it one way or the other.

[Nihila]

I'm in favor of defense canceling a certain amount of the total attacks dealt to a unit. If you just calculate total damage, then allow Warlords to divide it among enemy troops with certain limits (as in, one troop can only attack one enemy troop), then Leadership becomes much, much more valuable... You know, like how it's presented in the comic.

If each attack was forced to take a penalty for enemy defense, battle could become nightmarish, especially if some nutjob (e.g. me) took 3 of the 5 points out of Combat and turned those into 6 Move.

Then, I'd have a mobile, untouchable force with which to saturate battlespaces. Expensive, yes, but probably not prohibitively so.

So yes, while it's not a perfect system, I think that it places an appropriate value on Leadership.

One more thought:

Yes. I think unled stacks probably just go randomly, and when their current opponent goes down they switch to one at random (probably to one side or the other). But with a led stack, you could say, "Joe, Bob, and Fred, focus on #1 over there. The rest of you, hit #2."

Maybe, instead, damage from unled stacks should be dealt evenly to all opponents. Battles would have higher severe casualties for a "winner" in unled vs. unled, extremely high croaking rates for unled and moderate casualties in unled vs. led, and I don't really want to tax my brain thinking about led vs. led.

[Chris Goodwin]

I'm in favor of defense canceling a certain amount of the total attacks dealt to a unit. If you just calculate total damage, then allow Warlords to divide it among enemy troops with certain limits (as in, one troop can only attack one enemy troop), then Leadership becomes much, much more valuable... You know, like how it's presented in the comic.

Ok. I think that what you're saying is what I was saying. I think that what I was thinking (and upon rereading, I wasn't clear at all on -- mea culpa) was that, say, the exploitive defender with 19 Defense might stop up to 19 damage worth of attacks during the... combat round? Entire turn? If it were the entire turn, it would be too easy to take out tougher opponents. Round it is then.

Maybe, instead, damage from unled stacks should be dealt evenly to all opponents. Battles would have higher severe casualties for a "winner" in unled vs. unled, extremely high croaking rates for unled and moderate casualties in unled vs. led, and I don't really want to tax my brain thinking about led vs. led.

What I'm thinking for unled stacks is, each unit in an unled stack attacks a random unit in the other stack (if equal stacks, it's one to one for simplicity). If that unit croaks its opponent it switches to another random opponent (keeping proportional when possible; one won't move to an opponent already engaged with two unless they're all engaged with two).

Back to the topic of led stacks...

What I was thinking about Commander, Warlord, and Leadership, was a way to reconcile the terms. In the wiki there is some discussion about how exactly a Commander is different from a Warlord.

The way I want to reconcile is what I originally wrote (I'll rewrite it to clarify my intent):

If a stack contains a unit with the Commander Special, it is considered led, but gains no additional bonus. A Warlord is considered a Commander, but can lead all allied stacks in an entire hex. A unit with the Leadership special applies a bonus equal to its level to all units it is leading (a Commander with Leadership applies it to all units in its stack; a Warlord with Leadership applies it to all units in its hex).

Hmmm. Reading about Chief Warlord, in this case a Warlord is almost as good. Maybe, for a Warlord with Leadership: bonus applies to all units in its stack, and half its bonus applies to all units in the hex. But all allied stacks in hex with a Warlord are automatically considered led.

Oh, another idea: can a Commander or Warlord or Leader (or Caster...) lead via Thinkamancy? Probably not providing a bonus, and probably not more than a single stack, but if an unled stack is getting creamed, it might prove extremely helpful...

Onto a different topic: Is the dice system I came up with too complicated? I'm thinking maybe it is, and what would be better: for each unit, roll 1d10, and add the unit's bonuses to the die roll. On a 6+ that unit hits its opponent. Once your side has finished rolling, the other side gets to roll, same way. Damage is resolved simultaneously, after all attacks. Once all of the attacks are resolved, the combat round ends, and another begins. A combat ends when one side or the other is croaked, or when one side or the other withdraws -- typically this would be the attacker, because withdrawing units must leave the hex, and defenders can't, but can if they're in a city; they can withdraw to another city zone.

Another idea: if you roll an 11 or higher (because of bonuses) you can attack two different units simultaneously (divide up damage? full damage to each target?). What I'm looking at is replicating what we see here, where Ansom could have, had he chosen, waltzed into the city and taken it singlehandedly. (With a personal bonus of +33, the lowest he could roll would be 34, which would mean he could attack a minimum of 23 units!) Unbalancing, maybe... in that update, Ansom, Wanda, and their stack could have attacked a minimum of 160 units in one round!

[Azgrut]

I have read all idea's and found one very essential flaw in the system(s) presented here. In more massive combats, it will be too complicated.

Rolling for each unit, calculating their damage, rolling to see what random unit he attacks and then calculate damage is in my eyes far too much rolling.

But I would be a lame excuse for a human if all I did was criticise at the rules and not present something new.

My idea. When a stack of units attack another stack they attack simultaniously (except for archers who have first strike in the first round of combat). The attacker simply piles up all his combat stats to see his base combat. This is the damage the complete stack could be doing. Then he rolls a d10, adds bonusses, multiplies that result by 10 and sees the amount of percentage damage his stack will do.

Example: So the full led stack (total combat is... 48) attacks with a total bonus of +6 (i did not calculate penalties in this yet). He rolls a 7 thus recieves a 13 total. This means he inflicts 130% damage. The player does 48*1.3 and finds his stack inflicting 62,4 damage. All fractions round down thus it inflicts 62 damage.

Now the tables turn and the same goes for defenders "attacking" the attackers.

How to implat defence in this is still somewhat vague but I'll think of something. It does bring me to my next idea, leadership. (see next post)

[Azgrut]

The problem we have here is the difference between leadership and commanders. It can be very simple.

A unit with leadership will add its leadership bonus to his stacks combat roll. Easy as that. Warlords have a leadership stat equal to their level. Most other units do not have leadership. Two leadership bonusses do not stack, only the highest counts (exception is a bonus from the chief warlord).

Commanders can direct the combat. The higher level the commander, the more effective he can command the battle. A comander unit (warlords and casters for example) can redirect 10% of the damage inflicted to any unit they want. the rest of the damage is inflicted on the opponent stack evenly.

Thus in the last example, the stack inflicted 62 damage. The commander was level 3 and could direct 18 damage to any unit in the opponents stack (not including other commanders for else commanders will always have a low life span).The remaining 44 damage will be inflicted evenly on all combat participants. meaning they all will recieve 5 damage and 4 of them an extra 1 damage (who gets the extra damage? Based on stack order for simplicities sake).

What do you say?

[Chris Goodwin]

I have read all idea's and found one very essential flaw in the system(s) presented here. In more massive combats, it will be too complicated.

Rolling for each unit, calculating their damage, rolling to see what random unit he attacks and then calculate damage is in my eyes far too much rolling.

Well, this is intended to be the basis for an RPG, so I do want to see individual unit attacks. That aside, it's aimed at least partly at people who don't shy away from complexity (the intersection of Erfworld fans and roleplayers or hex-and-counter wargamers).

• In a stack, number the units 1-8 (or however many are in the stack). I'm assuming that you'll be keeping track of unit stats on paper or notecards anyway. Your opponent does the same.
• When combat happens, it's your #1 vs. their #1, your #2 vs. their #2, etc.
• When you're rolling for hits, roll your hits for each unit first, before resolving damage. It ends up being something like "Okay, I hit with number 1, 4, 5, 6, and 8 for, respectively, 12, 5, 5, 5, and 7 damage."

Not much harder than, say, Axis and Allies, where battles with 20+ units to a side are not uncommon, and you roll one die for each. For mass combat, if I'm going to move away from 'roll 1d10 for each unit' I'd probably use one of the other rulesets that are hanging around here on the forums. It's not like "Roll to hit, then roll a hit location, then roll damage, then check for additional effects, then keep track of damage for later..." When you can roll a handful of dice at once, and one die roll resolves a combat, it's not as complex as it might seem.

[BLANDCorporatio]

I should parse this thread more carefully to spot any true problems, but just wanted to say that I'd prefer smaller battles. Meaning, fewer units engaged at once. There's a decent amount of planning that such a situation can produce, see Disciples. Or better yet, endgame chess. (Not saying we should be emulating either of those btw).