[Beast Hunters] Tribal Warfare

[xenopulse]

I ran Beast Hunters demos at the recent Gamestorm convention here in Portland.  One of these games was a scenario I played with Chris and Lisa Goodwin.

They used two of the sample characters, Kelkha and Olor (they were a bit beefed up for the con). In this scenario, the two Beast Hunters are returning to camp to find it under attack from another tribe. The camp consists of a bunch of tents set alongside a rocky hill and a dense forest. The hostile warriors are streaming out of the woods, screaming and swinging their weapons. I created the following thread, which would have cost me 13 adversity points in a regular game:

Traits: Element of Surprise PO+4, Ferocious Fighters PO+4, Group Tactics PD+4
Resources: Spears and Axes PO+3, Battlehardened PD+3
Damage Levels: 2/1/1/1/1

Secondary Goals: Kidnap Children (15), Burn Down Camp (15).

I had to make this up on the fly, because my hard drive died on the night before the con, eating up my prepared demo notes.  I kept the setup simple, as an early challenge, to allow the players to focus on their own character traits and resources. It's also a good way to learn the system without having to worry too much about complications and in-depth tactics.

The two secondary goals provide the opportunity for the players to either reveal what characters care about, give more effort to completely win, or end up with a win that includes complications leading to further challenges: if the kids are kidnapped, they need to be rescued, and if the camp burns down, a new one needs to be built or other action taken.

Note that while I bought traits and resources for the warriors as a whole, I still played up the fact that there was a powerful leader with her own characteristics, even though she didn't have separate traits and resources. I had her die when the players specifically aimed a Strike at her and inflicted heavy damage on the threat, which is substantial but not enough to completely fight off the whole threat.

Here is what Chris posted about the game on the Berengad forum:

That was a lot of fun! Kelkha (played by me)'s first act was to unlimber her battleaxe and charge headlong into melee, howling like a banshee, swinging and inflicting as much damage as possible. She inflicted a few small wounds against the challenge (as I recall a medium and a heavy, maybe not in that order). There was a particularly vivid run on the leader which involved a slow motion leap and a swing which didn't take her out but came close. Olor spent much of her time intimidating the attackers, steeling herself spiritually, and throwing her spear; she bought off the Kidnap the Kids secondary goal and struck the killing blow (doing a Heavy wound which, after my Heavy and [Medium] wounds tracked to an Incapacitation and ended the challenge). They were on the way to burning the camp at this point (I don't remember whether they succeeded in it or not).

A couple of noteworthy points:

1) Once again, the AP offering system was my favorite part: it encouraged Chris and Lisa to make their actions creative and cool, and it allowed the players to gather advantage points whether they were attacking, maneuvering, calling on the spirits, or intimidating the enemy. 

2) As the advice in the book says, challenges and goals should be based not only what the character is interested in, but also the player.  When Lisa bought off the secondary goal to prevent the tribe's children from being kidnapped, she made comments about being a mother and the need to take care of kids.

3) I managed to deny Khelka's huge battle axe, meaning the other tribe's chief disarmed Chris' character.  That caused a severe drawback to Chris, which was good as a tactical complication, for which the deny resource action was designed. Chris managed to retrieve it later with a neat duck-and-roll action.

4) Naming the threat traits is important.  I used Element of Surprise not only in the beginning, as I had envisioned it, but it also inspired me to have enemy warriors sneak around the tents and ambush Olor.

Chris, Lisa, if you have any additional comments, I'd be glad to hear them. Other comments or questions are also welcome

[Chris Goodwin]

1) Once again, the AP offering system was my favorite part: it encouraged Chris and Lisa to make their actions creative and cool, and it allowed the players to gather advantage points whether they were attacking, maneuvering, calling on the spirits, or intimidating the enemy.

This is absolutely true.  There were a couple of times when I had to weigh accepting Christian's offer on the action or rolling the dice; I tend to be pretty bad at dice rolling, so I accepted each time.  I tried to make my descriptions awesome, and I think I did pretty well (well enough at least to get my denied resource back without having to roll for it). 

3) I managed to deny Khelka's huge battle axe, meaning the other tribe's chief disarmed Chris' character.  That caused a severe drawback to Chris, which was good as a tactical complication, for which the deny resource action was designed. Chris managed to retrieve it later with a neat duck-and-roll action.

Let me tell you, the resource denial hurt.  I had to get it back in order to have a hope of winning. 

The character sheet (the demo one we used at the con) made it clear that Kelkha was a total badass of a killing machine.  I didn't play her as effectively as I could have, mainly due to not having enough of either sleep or caffeine, but the traits tell you a lot about the character. 

[Callan S.]

Hi Christian and Chris,

What did you learn about the key factors involved in success...what it boiled down to? For example, real life wars often boiled down to getting supplies through, or even giving your soldiers boots with thicker heals (in cold slush, its vital). What would you identify as the pivotal tactical issues, after having played?

[Chris Goodwin]

For me, probably the primary issue was knowing the rules.  Not having been caffeinated enough, I missed a lot that Lisa caught when Christian was explaining things.  I was trying to play catch up, and it wasn't until later in the session that I figured out how everything fit together.

That aside, there's two ways you can go: either a bunch of small strikes to stack up the lighter wounds, or save advantage points up for bigger strikes but less of them.  I myself don't have a real feel for which way is better.  I can say that the key factor in my success was maintaining resources, or regaining when denied; those are what do damage, and having those can make all the difference.  Secondly, an occasional resource denial against the Challenger can work wonders, especially in a multi-player game; the Challenger goes once, but if there are more than one player they each get to go.  Oh, and teamwork. 

[xenopulse]

Callan,

Are you asking about factors in tribal warfare? Because, you know, this was a one-hour demo of one battle, not a whole campaign revolving around that issue   The tactical issues involved in having played were not related to any real-world warfare simulation, because that's not what the game is about.  It's about being a kickass tribal warrior, whether that's through physical dominance (such as Chris' character) or spiritual guidance (such as Lisa's character), in all cases fueled by the player's creativity in bringing those aspects out to the maximum.

[Callan S.]

Sorry, when I think of tactics I think at any scale - buying boots for your army or buying boots for yourself, so I didn't specify. I understand the scale is at the tribal warrior - lets see, at that scale in the PS2 game Mercenaries, one trick I learned was with the advanced prototype rifle - it had a zoom mode, but wasn't as accurate as the sniper rifle. However, I learnt that if you aim slightly above their heads, if you miss they don't notice (the shot hits earth way out of hearing), if you hit, it's in the head (while if you aimed at the head you'd likely hit their body and just sends them ducking and weaving).

In terms of the tribal warrior scale, what were the key factors of success that a situation boiled down to that you found out (my example above shows situation boiled down to key factor)?