Gladiators!

[Mike Holmes]

That's what I was getting at. I, of course, included stuff for Roman gladiators, but the question is whether or not that's what Lance wants. What would wyerth gladiators use?

Even still, I think it would be cool to have some exotic combinations in the arena.

Mike

[Rattlehead]

For those of you doing research on gladiators... I don't know how useful it will be, but on the Gladiator (the film) DVD there is a mini-documentary on the roman gladiators.... it might be of some use... seems like I remember there being a lot of interesting stuff on that DVD.. even a cool movie about this general who becomes a gladiator and seeks revenge or something... check it out...

Brandon

[Lance D. Allen]

Roman, Fantasy, Dark Sun... Why specify?

Alright, bad question. I figured that Weyrth would be the default, with the caveat added that for the purposes of this game, Gladiatorial Arenas are a common thing in Weyrth. I know they're probably not really, but it'd be more fun if we up and decided, simply for this game, that they were.

If you wanted to use another setting, including Dark Sun, Rome, whatever, that would be your option, and would rely on you to decide how much you wanted to add to the game.

However, I do suppose that it would be worthwhile to add such things as Roman-style gladiator weapons, and new proficiencies to go with them, as options usable for any setting. Roman history and specifics aren't my strongpoint, but I'll do some research and see what I can come up with. Thanks for the links and the info, Mike. It'll make a good starting point.

[contracycle]

Got my copy along with Circus Maximus. Heh, Gladiator is the only man to man combat game I know that uses plotted movement.

Theres another one, Swashbuckler, which used fully-plotted movement but including the Yank Rug, Topple Shelf, Hurl Mug and Wave Hat manouvres.

Which presents option 1 for a gladiatorial themed game - the basic rule system could be ported to different locales with special rules for those settings.

I remember seeing recently that some of the armour for gladiators was deliberately restrictive, so that it would act as something like a handicap.

[Ron Edwards]

Hey,

In the interest of difficult game title history clarifications ...

Swashbucklers! is a GURPS supplement
Flashing Blades is an FGU game
A Mighty Fortress is an AD&D2 supplement
At Rapier's Point is a RoleMaster supplement
Lace & Steel was recently re-issued by Pharos Press (can't remember the original publisher name)
Swashbuckler is a Jolly Roger game

... and there are probably a few other RPG references I'm missing.

I'm pretty sure Gareth isn't referring to the JR game - it doesn't include the specific maneuvers he's mentioning.

Best,
Ron

[contracycle]

No, although I cannot find a trace of it in a cursory search.  It was an album-style boardgame from the mid seventies, probably, and the inner surfaces of the holder served as top-down maps of a tavern and a ship.  It came with arrangeable units for shelving, chairs and tables, mugs, chandeliers, cannons etc.  You could play either a pirate or a musketeer.

[Ron Edwards]

Oh yeah! I remember that one. It was one of two "album games," the other one being called "Hero." Both were hybrids of miniatures/role-playing, with a slight emphasis on the former.

Best,
Ron

[Jaif]

http://www.panix.com/~sos/bc/swash2.html

Swashbuckler by Yaquinto games.  They made a lot more than 2 album games; I have 4 gathering dust on a shelf, none of them swashbuckler. :-)

-Jeff

[Unsane]

Not sure if this is accurate in any sense of the word.  Anyway, you might want to make it available for your gladiators to buy their own freedom after they get enough money as an added incentive to fight well.  Of course, you get to determine how much money it is.  Also, if the fighter is a champion, you might be able to persuade him to come back "one last time" to fight the current champion. . .and to keep his honor.

[Lance D. Allen]

Not a bad suggestion Unsane, but honestly, the Gladiators are not intended to be treated as characters. They aren't meant to have personalities or wants or desires. That is why the only SA they get is Luck. They are only meant to be extensions of the player.. Extreme and very literal Pawn Stance here.

If you like the stuff I'm putting together for Gladiator, but want your Gladiators to be people with personalities, feel free to tweak it so that they are. My feelings won't be hurt. However, this is not meant to be a roleplaying game in the typical sense, as I stated in the introduction. If you want to retire a Gladiator by saying "he won his freedom" that's cool with me. If you want to bring him back because he was the "reigning champion" that's cool too.

[Unsane]

Ohhhhhhhh. . .I get it now.

[Mike Holmes]

Hmmm. But even at a Pawn stance it's still an interesting question. Gladiators did win prizes in the games. They could accumulate money over time, and did. And they did buy out their bosses.

It's a simple thing. When a Gladiator wins he gets a purse based on the heat of the battle, etc. At any time, a player can give the gladiator his freedom in excahnge for all his money. At a certain point the player will look at the gladiator and the pile of cash, and just say, what the heck, give me the cash. What is also cool about this is that this gives the player a further incentive to keep the gladiator alive longer, resisting the urge to throw him in for the big payoffs every fight. He becomes even more of a long term investment.

Then, when the gladiator is freed, he can become a trainer (for appropriate pay), or just retire. In any case, the Stable should also have it's own reputation to add to each gladiator's heat. Part of that can be boosted by freeing heroic gladiators, giving further incentive to do so. So having the reigning champion retired from your house keeps a portion of his Heat available to you for a while. After a bit there will be a new champion, and if the old champ does not come back to fight, that Heat dissapates some. To get him to fight you have to offer a substantial remuneration.

Cool dynamics involved. You are pressurized to keep a gladiator fighting as long as possible, but eventually you'll want to retire him (oh, lets not forget the aging rules). So as to permenantly increase your prestige. It's all a gamble on how long you want to keep the gladiator in play. One cool thing is that when you retire the champions it makes more room for the up-and-comers. Fun stuff.

Ex. after a long season, Stonius has risen to the level of grand champion of the circuit. The player can keep him around for another year, and try to pump up his 112 Heat score even further (hard when you're at the top), or he can retire Stonius for one tenth his heat in Prestige (and his 140,000 secerstes), or 11 plus retaining the 10 for the champion bonus. So the house prestige would go from 22 (including the champion bonus) to 33. And they would keep the champion bonus until some other fighter got over 112 Heat and challenged Stonius. At which point Stonius would require a large fee (40,000 or ten times that as a purse or some combination) to fight again. Otherwise, as a free man, he can decide not to fight. The player considers his options (he is raking in a lot from Stonius' fights) and decides, based on the fact that Stonius has a publicly undisclosed permenant injury from his last fight, that he will retire Stonius at his height.

Just random assignments there, but you get the idea.

I really want to play this.

Mike

[Lance D. Allen]

I can see that you want to play this..

So how would we mechanically go about determining Heat? Perhaps partially related to how Insight works? Every point granted to the character raises Heat by 1? In addition to that, perhaps certain big fights will have Heat associated with the winner, and a crowd prize awarded during all fights of 1-3 points of Heat, if the "crowd" (either the MoC or an actual audience, depending on how your game is run) feels they're worthy.

[Mike Holmes]

Hmm. This would take a lot of work to get exactly right, and balanced, but I see Heat going something like this.

First, if the character is an important person they will have a lot of heat right off. The best and most obvious example is that the Emperor is going to have a huge Heat rating if he ever deigns to get out on the sands. We haven't discussed such possibiolities, but from a game aspect it would have to do with paying to get such a character out there. The GM would roll up the character, and present him as a possible candidate for celebrity gladiator. Then people would have to put up money to get them to participate. This would be the case with retired gladiators, soldiers, all sorts of people.

In any case, barring starting off as an important person, a slave starts with his ST+TO as his Heat, representing how big and impressive he looks. Characters with Beauty/Handsomeness of the Ages would get a +5 or +10 bonus. Stuff like that (things to consider when purchasing).

Then comes the actual performance. A familia starts with a 0 House Heat, representing at the start, the reputation of the family. Perhaps if you allow players to build their character that owns the familia from the ground up you could have nobles as owners (most were not, interestingly). These would start with a higher House Heat. Anyhow, House Heat is added to all gladiator's Heat scores for most purposes. A House can lose Heat for failing to appear at tournaments, etc. or gain it as in the case of the retired gladiators in the thread above, etc.

Fights are arranged ahead of time with the managers getting together to decide who they think should fight who amongst all the gladiators attending. Once this is decided using whatever manner the player's like, including paying for rights to fight, that match remains set until it is fought. For purposes of a match the Match Heat is sum of the fighters Heat's. No matter how many participate in each match. So if I have six gladiators all fighting at once, each with fifteen heat, that's a Match Heat of ninety. Then this primary Heat is modified for the type of match. If it is just to first wound, it remains unmodified. If it is to submission, it gains +20%. If it is to the death it gains +50%. Stuff like that.

The total of the Match Heats is the Tournament Heat. This is modified by money spent for advertising, etc. From this total, is calculated the purses available to the gladiators, and money paid to the familia for attending, which are split proportionately to the individual Heat's of the individual Matches. So, it 6000 gold coins come in, and there are three matches each with a heat of 30, 60, and 90 respectively, the payments would split 1000, 2000, 3000 to the matches, and, for example, the familia with one fighter in the 90 Heat six man match would get 500 gold for his participation.

Once the battle actually commences, this Heat goes up or down depending on the performances of the fighters. Every time two or more fighters circle, the match loses five Heat. So, in our example six man free for all, if we have three pairs, and they all circle, the Match loses fifteen Heat. For every non-circling exchange that occurs, the match gains one Heat. For every wound that occurs, the match gains five Heat. A preplanned Death gains 10 Heat. An accidental death gains 20 Heat. Orating to the crowd gains heat if done well. As does dropping your guard, and other derring do. All sorts of stuff.

At the end, the losers gain heat proportional to the difference between the Match Heat at the start, and the Match Heat at the end divided by ten (this is stolen straight from Kayfabe). The winner gets the same increase in his Heat and an additional increase equal to the Heat gained by all of the other opponents.

Note that impromptu challenges can be offered and accepted in the middle of a tournament, but that there is no money gained for doing so. Such matches have a + 10% Heat, however. Also, rematches are popular, and have a +10% Heat. This can only be done until one gladiator wins twice in a row (further matches have -10% Heat cumulative until the other guy wins; a good manager will not allow such battles for his man).

The idea is to build your fighter's Heat scores until they are big draws. Players will want to assure that their fighters are matched against fighters of similar Heat so that they are getting a good return for the fight. A 100 gladiator fighting a 10 gladiator stands to gain relatively little, while the 10 gladiator stands to gain mightily. Not a fair proposition.

Fights should be scheduled regularly, say once a week. A gladiator that does not fight loses one Heat each week until he hits his base score.

Pretty loose, but that's the concept. How does it sound?

Mike

[Mike Holmes]

Ooh, I forgot. You can order a gladiator to work the crowd. They can throw less dice than their full amount in an attempt to even out the battle, and thus, extend it building Heat. But if they ever fumble doing so, the crowd notices this, and the Match Heat drops in half, instantly.

Gladiators can also "Job", that is throw the fight. They must be paid a lot to do so (otherwise they have no incentive), and will obviously not throw a fight that's to the death. The amount paid should be proportional with their Heat. Again, they simply roll less dice than they normally should, with a fumble causing the Jobing gladiator to lose all his accumulated Heat (he goes back to base score). Such a gladiator can gain no more Heat until he wins a fight (thus proving that he is once again honorable). Makes it hard to find a fight, except against other scrubs.

Thinking about it, Heat should probably rise one per success rolled. That makes good parries worthwhile, or any other maneuver. Lots of successes all at once likely means a short battle, however. Long battles with a few successes every roll that don't manage to get past armor and shields, etc, that's what the crowd wants. Use the END rules, however. If a battle goes really long, less dice get rolled, and the batle gets pathetic.

Hmm. How about Heat drops by 3 per round, per two combatants no matter what. Then it requires successes just to cancel this. Yep, I think that's a much better rule. Circling still loses three Heat, but you can also lose Heat for pathetic exchanges. After a long battle, the exhauted gladiators won't be able to generate the effort to get enough successes and Heat will drop. Cool. Puts a limit on things. You can rest, but then you lose Heat while you do.

This is a blast.

Mike