[AD 316] It began with the killing of the witches

[Gregor Hutton]

This week a new game club started up in Edinburgh in the Espionage bar/nightclub (Tuesday nights for anyone interested). We had a 3-hour playtest of the Roman version of 3:16, wittily called AD 316 and set in the reign of Constantine. I've posted about this on the Collective Endeavour site but it's also worth me posting it here and discussing different things as playtesting goes on.

This week we had "Pagan Witches" with "Induce Weakness" in the "Borderlands" of the Empire (and the Threat was 6, based on the highest FA). The encounters went well and the new "Spotlight" scenes seemed to work too.

So we had 4 players and me GMing. We had Myles (who I've known for years but haven't gamed with recently), Iain (a co-wroker of Myles, about the same age as Myles -- early 20s), Graham (a new guy to me, early 20s) and Brian (30s, someone I've known a while but have only gamed with very briefly, a good guy).

Myles is in charge (!) with his character Maximus [FA/NFA: 4/6; Rep: Bitter] (whose brother Furius leads the Legion). His right hand man is the "Indecisive" Ianus [4:6], with two legionaries Virgil [5/5; Treacherous] and Alexander [6/4; ??].

I had forgotten the game night was on so we were playing from 3:16 with my Moleskine notebook rather than my AD 316 PDF and notes. Better luck on this front next week, including my Roman names list.

We had a few Weaknesses (induced by my Witches) where Maximus was struck deaf and mute by a fall to the head, repeating a child-hood illness (caused by his brother), Alexander was isolated by the witches and taken for sacrifice (unsuccessfully in the end as the Legion intervened) due to his headstrong ways.

Some Strengths too. Maximus has been stabbed in the back by his brother Furius before (when he seduced Maximus' wife) and he used this to great effect when the enemy tried to outfox him in battle. Virgil also showed Strength in his barbarian roots, slaughtering the masses.

Myles and Brian levelled up. Maximus also increased Rank, while Ianus gained a new weapon (to be picked next week).

Spotlight scenes (which are new, and spotlight each PC between encounters) worked well and they weren't all a mixture of "Treatment" scenes to heal, either. Yeah, healing isn't automatic and requires a small scene between encounters.

Myles absolutely did me with an Ambush when I was doing a one-to-one encounter with his deaf and mute Maximus. When shall we three meet again? On the tip of Maximus' spatha it seems.

In short it was bloody and enjoyable.

FLANKING
We tried out Flanking at only Close range and we never got to use it (well, Myles would have but he had already Ambushed and slaughtered my 1 Threat Token by that point...). However, and crucially, we could see that it was a useful addition at all ranges.

So, we play next week with Flanking as an option at all ranges. Flanking means that the Threat cannot Kill you on a success (though they can move you, i.e. unflank themselves, if they beat your roll).

The extra health level (Bloodied) was satisfying and help offset the desire to have Treatment Spotlights between encounters. The Treatment scenes we did have were enjoyable.

Myles' Maximus throwing a dagged at Furius' foot, before staggering off to a tent to have his wounds tended. Ianus also had some tender treatment from a slave girl, while Virgil had the gaping axe mark in his arm seared by a heated blade, before being bound in lint and leather.

So, thumbs up for Treatment scenes. Crucially, for me, was the establishment of meaningful relationships and positioning of the characters fictionally to each other and NPCs in these scenes. It was not just a case of "heal a wound".

Other Spotlight scenes were...

...some "Assault" Spotlights where Maximus and Virgil failed to slay some innocent pagans, and merely stoked up trouble for my following encounter. The witches sought dreadful revenge for the hostile assault Maximus made on a small child, who he thought he had killed (but hadn't). This child will return in the fiction, of that we are assured!

...some "Leverage" Spotlights where Brian got a +1 to FA and then +1 to NFA between encounters. Ianus also got a +1 to FA by proving his virility with the slave girl who had tended to him between previous encounters.

...I think we had one successful "Stratagem" Spotlight from Myles (an NFA scene to reduce Threat). Maximus plotted and tracked down a pagan and discovered the whereabourts of the kidnapped Alexander -- Maximus killed the pagan once he had finished interrogtaing him. Pencil notes scribbled by me afterwards. Very satisfying I thought.

I need to make a sheet for NPCs, since we are growing a nice brood of relationships, including Maximus' wife who has only appeared in Flashback so far.

[Gregor Hutton]

Another session tonight. And this time I need to remember 0 Kills means injuring but not killing, right? Right!

Picts, Fog, AA = 8, Ambush ... bring it on Legion of the Ninth!

[Akora]

With a "Roman" setting, how do you handle weapon statistics? Since there is no equivalent of a machine gun how can you balance the ranges?

[Gregor Hutton]

Good question and I hope to show the answer in the write up of last night's session.

Basically, the three ranges are:
* Close. You are pressed up against enemies and it's too close to fight with spears, but daggers and other short weapons are ideal.
* Near. You are at a distance that allows manoeuvring and striking with most melee weapons such as axes, swords and so on.
* Far. Allows striking with long melee weapons that outreach shorter weapons, such as spears, tridents, javelins, and also missile weapons like scorpio (or Manuballista?), plumbatae, pilum, etc.

So the ranges aren't as expanded. AD 316's Close and Near would be just "Close" in 3:16, while Far would fall within "Near" in 3:16.

Most weapons have a "-" at one of the ranges and so getting closer or further away in combat is desirable. We also have a "In Cover/Flanking" position at each range, which is good to move into as you can kill without being killed yourself. It worked pretty well last night and usefully it made us say where we were in the fight (behind trees, taking cover under a shield wall, wedged into a rock face behind a boulder, in open country but around the rear of the enemies position, etc.).

The other use of weapons is in Assault "spotlights" between encounters, where it's the best kills that matter rather than range. Myles used his sword against his own men last night to prove a point.

Weapons also kill fewer of the enemy. Kills are something like 0 (where you injure, but don't kill), 1, d3, d6, d10, 2d6, 3d6.

Oh, and someone got a pictish attack dog on the fly in the game (when he bested its master), which we statted up as a 1/1/1 weapon. That's persuaded me to tell the GM how to make new weapons if they come up in the story. Graham got to keep the dog after the mission as he made his Development Roll.

[Gregor Hutton]

I started by setting the scene: Furius is leading the Legion (Legio IX Hispana ... why not?) north past Hadrian's Wall to Caledonia. Picts have been raiding souch of the wall and the Legionaries have been sent to go and sort them out.

We had a new player start this week: Richard was playing Gaius, an Optio (equiv. of Sergeant, it seemed to fit that he could be any of the starting ranks and didn't have to prioritize NFA to justify it) who went FA/NFA: 6/4 and grabbed a Sword and Shield as his main weapon. He is Maximus' replacement at Optio as Myles' character is now a Centurion (in charge of 80 men). His rep is Grizzled, and he is "Favoured" for NFA (in AD 316 you get to choose which stat you can re-roll for Favour of the Gods -- everyone else went for FA).

Enemy: Picts, Threat (i.e. AA): 8, Threat Tokens: 30 (I get 6 X Number of PCs), Location: Thick Fog, Ability: Ambush.

Oh, a note about pick lists here...
-----
There are 20 "Threat" equations (including flat numbers of 10, 8, 6, 5 and 4), 20 "Abilities" (including new ones like "Unflankable"), 20 "Locations" (River deltas, Islands, Borderlands, Thick Fog, Mountains, Rome...), and 10 "Enemies". You re-use enemies once at laast 5 Missions have passed since you first used them. When you re-use them you get the initial ability for free and an additional one. This should help GMs (like Ron when running 3:16, who brought it to my attention in a post here) who only learnt how to best use an Ability once a mission was done. So, you get to use an Ability you've learned to use with another new one. It will make re-incorporation fun, and a real challenge for the PCs (I hope). So as GM I'm stacking away loose ends to revisit in 5 Missions from now, and that rolls forward. Reap what you sow.
-----

Anyway, they are at the abandoned Antonine Wall running between the Forth and Clyde across central Caledonia and are soon instructed to deal with some Picts camped out at a river edge in the fog, and once framed we get our first encounter.

I use Ambush and the first Threat Token is expended. Some use Armour here (they've used it when they've wanted to rather than "gaming it" and keeping it for the last resort), while most of the group is "Bloodied". The Fighting begins at Near Range (which I picked to avoid them running out of the fight on their turn!) and Graham begins the night rolling badly, he continued this all night and ended the evening with a very scarred Virgil.

The PCs eventually triumph and as GM I miss a trick which I realise later! (If, when the Threat Tokens run out the PCs are engaged in fighting then enemies are killed if a PC has a success to come, otherwise the enemies flee in the fiction... we had a case where a PC succeeded but the enemies "died" before their turn in the round. Ah ha! That PC should have got his kills. The Threat was gone, but the Pict(s) were still there in front of him. Need to highlight that!)

Encounters work out much like 3:16 except the Flanking option at all ranges really helped with the feel of the battling. Outflanking your opponent or taking cover isn't just a tactical option, it's also satisfyingly adding to the SIS. There's been a lot of thinking on this on Vincent's blog, and so I'm watching this closely in these playtests. Players are taking advantage of things in the fiction to take cover behind or to flank around, and equally when I outflank them or flush them from cover we're interested in what is happening in the fiction. Getting into cover is a good option as at best the GM can only uncover you or change your range, but you can't be killed on the very next turn.

This is leading to fewer Kills by the GM in combats (and combined with an extra Health Level) this is off-setting the fact that you no longer auto-heal between encounters. Don't feel too bad for the GM, though, I've been getting more Threat Tokens and I'll soon be combining abilities. I think PC death is less likely immediately in AD 316 (no grenades for starters!) and I need to communicate that in the writing, but death will still be a possibility in later missions when I get to combine the Abilities.

We used pretty large "minis" for our Romans and playing in a nightclub/bar we were using small round tables to play on... so we have one table for Close, one for Near and one for Far. On each table was a white sheet of paper that signified if you were Flanking/In Cover. Worked pretty well, and the large abstraction of play space even more reminded me of Krasarnomeets. I think I'll advise marking out "regions" of the play space as an option to having a play mat/board.

Generally the PCs don't have long-ranged weapons and so as GM it's good to get them at Far and beat them up/throw them out. So far no one is fleeing battles (well, with Myles' Maximus as the Centurion no one wants to be seen to be as cowardly). I need to firm up which weapons can be switched to for free too. It fitted very well that Myles could easily switch to grabbing one of his lead darts and lob it into the eye of a Pict from behind the safety of his shield.

Spotlights again went really well and we had some tussling over the life of Llofric, a native (but non-Pict) that Ianus had been given care of as a "security" from tribes near the Roman forward camp. In the end Alexander used an excellent Stratagem scene before the final battle to tell the young boy to flee and hide in amongst the dead bodies of the Picts until the legion had gone. I removed a Threat Token for this successful NFA test and it was very satisfying in the story. Myles' Maximus had earlier gone with Graham's Virgil to "Assault" a village populated by Llofric's relatives. Later on the ever-indecisive Ianus used a Leverage scene to get +1 FA by wrestling and practice fighting with the boy between encounters. I played Llofric as creeped out and edgy as he was fought by Ianus, his supposed protector. Menacing was how the legion seemed to all of us around the tables, I thought for sure he would killed by someone. But Alexander showed there was another side to the Romans by giving him his freedom.

A couple of Strengths were used, Maximus may be deaf and mute, but he does have brutally heroic leadership qualities. Ianus also has convincing oratory as he plead for peace with the Picts which the Legion used to butcher them under a white flag. Virgil used a Weakness to have his manhood bitten off by a war dog rather than be crippled. He then used the resultant spotlight to follow the dog handler and Assault him -- he got a dog out of it, which was excellent and just fitted the role-playing perfectly (Desperate, drug-addled, emasculated? check!).

And the final rule of the night was keeping track of removing Threat Tokens - it turned out to be easy to do. Myles ended up removing 7, while Brian removed 4, the others were at 3, 3 and 2. (We counted a Strength as removing a flat 3, a Weakness counts as 1.) The top "Killer" and "Threat remover" were to dice off to Level up. So, it was Myles as he killed the most too. The rest then diced off and Richard levelled up. The dual road to the first roll off seemed to be useful and worth keeping (the loser of the first roll-off goes into the second roll off so they get two bites of the cherry.) It made Spotlights a useful place to get to removing Threat tokens (rather than just killing) in the cause of Levelling Up too.

[Valamir]

Tell me what I need to do to earn a cool roman centurion pic to sit next to my dude in power armor pic...!!!

[Gregor Hutton]

Hi Ralph

I'll happily send you the rules that I'm playing with when I have them fully assembled in a PDF. It's not such a great departure from 3:16, but advice on ordering of sections, wording of the text and how the rules are working for you is always appreciated.

I'm going to try a lower Threat this week (4, ticking that low number off this list) and pick Mountainous terrain with Sarmatians ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarmatians ) and the ability "Flee!". I'll have some Sarmatian raiding parties harrying the edge of the Empire in Pannonia (I'll model the terrain after photos taken by a friend of the Plitvice Lakes national park in Croatia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plitvice_Lakes ).

[Gregor Hutton]

Game Session 3

So, we tried a few different things this week... and Maxmius set village fields on fire too as the Sarmatians met a bitter end.

Flee! (and other movement abilities) need to be paid for became pretty clear since the weapons are generally "compressed" and kill at only two of the three ranges.

Up till now we have been straight counting down from 10 to 1 with people going on their number -- i.e. dealing with Failures and Successes as their number comes up, which means Failures happening earlier in the round. It wasn't as satisfying I think and it made things more complicated, and so this week we went to 3:16's Successes First, Failures Last. I think it worked better that way, which was good to know.

I was stricter on what weapons people had and making them use NFA to switch to them, to see which ones fictionally made more sense for an easy switch (Improvised being the obvious one that we'd already had as a free switch). I'm thinking of advice on the GM making judgement calls when in the fiction it makes sense for the PC to switch even on a failure (he throws a weapon away or whatever), maybe they just get to switch because they've used the round for getting a different weapon. But they need to roll to see if they are killed doing so? And they only get to change range on a success, or defend themselves with a Shield using a success.

We tried out re-entering Encounters (you get one chance to come back in) and that worked well. Basically, when booted out you get one shot at re-entering, which can be using NFA on a subsequent round or using an existing success in the current round. You re-enter not in cover or flanking.

And we used the "on a success you can Kill whoever is in front of you in the fiction if the Threat has run out before your turn" (and when it came up in game Myles' Maximus used his higher success to kill the dude in front of Ianius! Ha! So while the rule was there for Ianius, it caused Myles to make his fictional kill the guy in front on Ian's character. Nice!)

Magic also came into the game this week in the guise of a Roman Witch NPC (based, absolutely, on the one in Tito Faraci's "The Last Battle" (sadly not yet available in English! I have the German version). In AD 316 the magic where there is any is not like a weapon or a bonus, it's deliberately ill-defined colour and mystery, and it worked pretty well for us. Virgil consorted with the Roman Witch in a Stratagem spotlight and it was pretty creepy/cool. He had been cutting the tongues off of his victims and so he used these with the Witch to send some of the Sarmatians mad with sorcery. I took a Threat Token off and now the rest of the Legionaries are wondering how Christian he is (he claimed he was Christian but he has Barbarian blood and now has a vicious dog that he uses to kill relentlessly!).

Myles used the equivalent of an Orbital Bombardment this week -- called "Pyrrhic Victory". (I wondered if that will upset people? I mean Pyrrhus beat the Romans, rather than being a Roman. But I like it though.) This ended the Mission and destroyed two Centuries of the Legion (the Ninth Century that was being attacked as well as the PCs' First Century that had gone to save them). Myles got 120 Kills out of it (3d6 x 10) and managed to avoid demotion after the mission. We narrated in Furius supporting him in his plea when hauled before a Senator. Myles has the Senator being the angry father of his character's wife (who never approved of Maximus for his daughter). Anyway, he has broken the Legion doing this and so I'll merge them with another Legion next week and introduce some new NPCs. Furius was, well, Furius with his brother about this turn of events but he's damned if a Senator is going to get rid of Maximus! If anyone does that it will be Furius himself.

Myles killed the most things (again), while Graham and Myles both removed 5 Threat each. So Myles and Graham diced off and Myles levelled up. Graham then diced off with the other two (Brian missed this week, no problem) and became the only one not to level up! The other two rolled 9s and went up together on a tie. That seems to fit well.

So Graham is the only guy to have not Levelled up and he is out of Strengths and Weaknesses. I wonder if he'll buy it next week...

For next week... we're going back to one fewer Health Level and making the Treatment scenes require a successful NFA test. I'm going to try some other bonuses for things that the spotlights throw up (maximum kills on the first strike in the following encounter, +1s to stats we have already, +1 to kills). Gaius got cursed this week for rolling a 10 on his Favoured NFA re-roll, so that is going to have to come in. I'm thinking I'll "target" him for damage in a spotlight, try to Force a Weakness on him, or something...

Richard's Optio Gaius has stockpiled 2 Strengths and 2 Weaknesses so I think I'll try something hard next week (Goths?) with the Unflankable ability and a high Threat to really screw them out of them or at least put them in difficulty.

The week after that will be the final week of guaranteed new threats. After that I can start to bring back in the Picts and so on... and combine abilities.

Oh, the highlight of this week was the spotlights leading naturally into free play. This has grown organically from week 1 and is pleasing. We now have NPCs established. Furius really talked smack to Ianius last night as the Principales tried to rat on Maximus to his brother. Oh dear, Myles will kill him if he finds out. Meanwhile Maximus and Virgil are plotting to kill Furius themselves...

[brianbloodaxe]

I'm sorry I missed the session, sounds like you didn't miss me though!
Still looking forward to next weeek...

...so I think I'll try something hard next week (Goths?) with the Unflankable ability and a high Threat to really screw them...

And about this:

Meanwhile Maximus and Virgil are plotting to kill Furius themselves...

Not a chance! Furious is my best chance for getting rid of Maximus!

[Gregor Hutton]

No problem, Brian. I think one of the nice things is that we have seen play go along pretty happily with a new player joining after the start and a player skipping a week.

See you next week. :-)

Oh, Myles asked about promoting and demoting on the fly this week (he wanted to demote Principales Ianius and promote Legionary Virgil -- his bloodthirsty barbarian conspirator), and I said no. Promotions have to be earned (by a Development Roll), but should I open up Field Promotions to all Ranks? Not just the top rank, but any PC that dies is an opportunity for promotion. I guess that might pull the story towards Centurions and Legates (and maybe fictionally towards large battles where several Legions fight together?). Anyway, I need to write about that in the text. The same with "sharing" weapons -- if you haven't learned how to use them then they are "Improvised Weapons" and use your Improvised profile.

It looks like the Scorpio is becoming the Manuballista, and I'll leave the Scorpio and Ballista as exotic weapons that can be picked up later on.

Oh, oh, and we had Horse rules this week. A horse allows you to change range on your turn if you succeed (whether it was before the enemy or not), and it also can take a Kill (and dies in the process) for its rider. Should a Horse be able to move then kill? Everything else Kills then moves. Or maybe an "upgraded" Horse can do this?

[Gregor Hutton]

I'm hoping to get cracking on putting a PDF together this weekend and over the next week. For anyone that is interested there are some mobile phone pictures here: http://gregorhutton.com/boxninja/ad316/

Just a pic of the print out of the cover and some interior sketches and some watercoloured pieces.

[Gregor Hutton]

This week we tried out a few new things and rules-wise it's very almost there.

The spotlights worked very well and imortant and meaningful story elements are happening in, and being driven by, the spotlights. We had a creepy Assault this week on strange magical homonculi, Alexander killing a strange sea beast, Gaius rousing his untrained Century in a Leverage, etc.

Pretty much Treatment has to be automatic if you choose that as a spotlight.

Also this week Maximus killed his brother in an Assault scene. As a "named" NPC Furius had two Health boxes, but I failed both my rolls against Myles! And each time I was trying to use Induce Weakness. Sigh.

Onward, and I'll post more when I am on a decent computer connection.