Things were slow so i started working my way back through the old post pages....

Gladiatorial Team League..... Whats up with this... It's an awesome way for me to solve the problems I was looking at on the Wed night Demo I'm starting next week.

I am going to Start weekly demos in my local Store where i met Jake. On wednesday night there, A group of about 5-6 plays D&D, and 6-10 people Play legend of the 5 rings CCG. Most of these CCG people are dedicated long time Gamers... 3 have tRoS experience from in store or from Conventions. Starting a Gladiator League, i can get them to participate in a couple brief sessions a night and teach/(Learn) game mechanics while advertising for my bi-weekly campaign i'm starting there on saturdays in October.

Has any more been done on this system?

Has any more been done on this system?

Mike Holmes wrote:
Yeah, Lance. What he said. :-)

I've been working on my own version behind the scenes a little, but I'm waiting till it's more complete to get out.

Mike

Price per slave, this is an interesting topic that i am not very familiar with. According to the book a common Laborer can be hired for 4s a month.... Makes for an income of ~2.5 gold a year.... If we assume a purchase price ~4 years wage this would make joe average in good health worth 10 gold. To work him as a loborer would take perhaps 6 years to recover your investment... (have to care for him) and turn a small profit on the 7th year.. For game purposes indentured servants would be cost 3 years wages up front and be freed after 7.

How does this sound for a starting point in the Gladiator pricing.... Obviously bigger/Stronger/Exotic slaves would cost more.

But a pricing of 4 years wages at 10gold +
Sample pricing for slaves based on this formula

Servant 3 gold 14 silver (unsuitable as a laborer Low St TO & EN?)
Worker 10 gold
Guard 12 - 17 gold
Merc infantryman 12 gold
merc Archer 20 gold..... (think carefully about giving a slave-glad a bow)
Merc Cavalry 30 gold (another 20 gold for horse)
Swordsman 250 gold (holy toledo, this is figured from minimum daily, even if this is cut by 60% for a monthy contract, still 100 gold for a very well trained warior slave)

any thoughts....

Hmm some on skill levels from me

Merc soldiers should have no Attributes above 5 and no more than maybe 3-4 profiecency in thiers weapons. 8-9 CP

Swordsman made under starting charachter rules for Glads CP 11-13 Might not be sword that they are really good at perhaps slightly less if so

Common workers should only have CP - 6-7

Servants should have CP 4-5

All these are starting points obviously.... the kitchen drudge with 4 years experience who is champion of thier class might have CP 9-10 and be beating new merc soldiers.


Anyway a starting point on values at Auctions, there should always be NPC's at auctions willing to pay 80% of this price hoping to get a good bargain on a slave.... occasionally there should be NPC bidding up to 125% of price on select slaves

I would actually like to keep NPC interaction to a bare, bare minimum. In something like this, the players should make up almost 100% of the interactions.

Something I'm not sure I'm grasping from your pricing, though.. Where in that pricing would you place a beginning level character? Or does "level" even have a place in that? If not, then the entire character building process would be moot, and you'd simply build a character without restriction, then set a price. This has it's merits, though... If we're going to do it that way though, there's going to have to be a lot more specifics about how much money corresponds to what levels of skills, and areas of skills.

Wolfen wrote:
I would actually like to keep NPC interaction to a bare, bare minimum. In something like this, the players should make up almost 100% of the interactions.

Something I'm not sure I'm grasping from your pricing, though.. Where in that pricing would you place a beginning level character? Or does "level" even have a place in that? If not, then the entire character building process would be moot, and you'd simply build a character without restriction, then set a price.

This has it's merits, though... If we're going to do it that way though, there's going to have to be a lot more specifics about how much money corresponds to what levels of skills, and areas of skills.

The way I'm seeing it, your "baseline" slave will be at least a trained warrior with a CP of 11-12 or so. If you throw a laborer into the arena against odds like that, it better be purely as cannon fodder, so the masses can have their blood and gore without losing a valuable gladiator.

What I considered baseline is what you could get if you took the character creation rules, and created a warrior. Social Class wouldn't need to be worried about, and skills would, in most instances, be less important. Race would usually be tertiary as well, so you're likely going to end up with a highly formidable warrior as your baseline. Let's get a cost for THIS gladiator, then extrapolate from there.

Wolfen wrote: The way I'm seeing it, your "baseline" slave will be at least a trained warrior with a CP of 11-12 or so.

Wolfen wrote:

If you throw a laborer into the arena against odds like that, it better be purely as cannon fodder, so the masses can have their blood and gore without losing a valuable gladiator.

Wolfen wrote:
What I considered baseline is what you could get if you took the character creation rules, and created a warrior. Social Class wouldn't need to be worried about, and skills would, in most instances, be less important.

Wolfen wrote:
Race would usually be tertiary as well, so you're likely going to end up with a highly formidable warrior as your baseline. Let's get a cost for THIS gladiator, then extrapolate from there.

OK, John and Lance,

Part of the problem here is that we're talking at cross purposes here. If we're going to make this a group effort, then we hav to agree on some assumptions. Below are the things I've identified that we need to agree on before we can really begin. No doubt discover more as we go, and there isn't any reason we can't change our minds later. But to start we should be on the same sheet of music.

First, and most difficult, if this is going to be a team effort, we need a leader. That is, someone to make final decisions. Note that, when it's all done that each of us can tailor a version to our liking. But if we're going to get anything done, then we need to have a final arbiter for the project. Whoever that is, can make final decisions, allowing us to move on. I nominate Lance as he started the idea, but would be amenable to anyone.

Second, setting. Where is this happening? I think that we're in agreement that it's in Wyerth, generally. But is it some Generic country or set of countries? Or something specific? I believe that it's been pointed out that there are no countries that exist in Wyerth that actually allow such sport. As such we'd be playing with a modified Wyerth. Which is fine by me. But we should then delineate the differences. I'd personally like more detail than less so that we can remain consistent.

Here's a big problem. Whenever I do a Sim like this, the same problem occurs in terms of NPCs. That is, do we account for them, or not. Eachis highly problematic. If you do not account for them, then you run into the problem that the number of players that you have participating will not constitute a "market". That is, you need a lot of people interacting to get market effects. Still, this can be an interesting addition to the game. That is, if the "PCs" represent the totality of the "league" then starting small will have it's own problems as will growing the league.

OTOH, having NPCs is very interesting. You can use it to create a mature league, and jump right into play. Much like when you play computer footaball against the computer teams. But this is highly problematic as you have to "program" the NPCs. To have them act in anything other than a pre-programmed fashion is to have the players potentially feel that the GM is playing favorites. A variant where that's OK could be agreed to (much more RPG than simulation). But I think we want the baseline to be arbitrary. That said, we can look at both sides.

All that said, even if you do go with the PCs as the only owners in the league, it does make sense to have NPC bidders at auction. Because a) they would exist in RL, else there'd be no auction (perhaps they are just llooing for "normal" slaves, or looking to take stock to some other league), and b) it makes it so that players can't poach. They must pay a minimum bid of some sort. It also randomizes the results a bit, and makes the auction a skill thing in all cases. The player will constantly be judging whether or not the gladiator is worth the current price or not, even when not bidding against another player.

What metrics do we want to consider, and which do we not? And to waht level of abstraction? For example, we agree that there will be owners, and they will own slaves. What about any of the other stuff that I suggested? Trainers and other staff? Venues? Travel? Training? Heat? Purses? Retirement? etc, etc. If we can al least get a consensus of sorts on some of these things then we can get going on them.

Terminology. What terms do we use for what? For example, if we're in Wyerth we have to decide on the (presumably) English terms that we'll be usig to represent the in-game terms. Or we can go with generic terms (though I think that lacks flavor; perhaps a compromise)? Until we have terms that we agree on (and remember to use correctly) there will be confusion.

On the subject of base price, I think that calculating the cost for a slave from the cost to pay a person is going to be inaccurate. You can't sell a freeman (or even peasants, IIRC), so there's no conversion rate. Swordsmen probably come with swords, and do so voluntarily. A slave does not. It may be accurate in a sort of market sense to do thesort of comparison you're doing, but the real question is one of supply and demand. How rare are slaves, and how much demand is there for them (anti-correlaton with the peasant population growth)? As such, I think that we can set the price point at anything reasonable, and assume that supply and demand are pushing things.

But that leads me to an important point about such designs. At some point you need to have an arbitrary sum stated for something. Slaves is a fine place to start in theory, but we may want to consider some other places as well. Because once you start at that arbitrary place, all other prices start to be informed by that arbitrary one. If slaves cost x then I better be potentially able to make y so that I can recoup my costs, and perhaps a profit if things go well. Essentially, once you have one price set, you start to be able to determine the others from the first. The assumption being that the economics of the situation must be such that this sort of vbusiness is feasible. Else there would be nobody doing it.

Just a personal preference, I see "baseline" as untrained. Ceeratinly they will be bringing in untrained slaves. You don't have to buy them, but they are available. Just increases the range of what will happen on the sand. It's fun to see what happens when you put a sword in some slave's hand for the first time, both RPG wise, and tactically. Just increasesthe range of available play. At the other end, you'll have combat gods that were captured probably at loss of life an limb who will cost a ton to start with. This then becomes the question, start small, and build up slow, or try and kickstart things with lots of talent. Most people will probably choose a mix.

But this allows for a lot of strategy in selecting your stock. It's like NFL draft day, but much wider open, and happens more often. The auctions I've run have been whole games unto themselves, and a ton of fun. Scouting, asessing, bidding...Very cool. I can't suggest it more.

Mike

Well, I'm definitely up for collaboration if you guys are. My ideas are good, but your additions and suggestions are excellent, and things I hadn't thought about. I *would* like to be the "lead" in this effort, as it was my idea to begin with, but I don't see it being much of an issue.

Setting: As the default setting of TRoS is Weyrth, I think it best to consider the default setting of TRoS Gladiators (working title) as Weyrth as well. As for how to incorporate it into the setting, I would propose this: Gladiatorial Arenas is a new/old thing from Xanar which is coming back into vogue, and is spreading across the continent. As tensions grow due to the incipient wars, the commoners are getting agitated, and the rulers are seeing this as the perfect diversion to keep them in line. Gladiatorial Arenas are going up in many of the major cities, and smaller ones are being financed by private nobility in less prominent areas (such as the one that Maximus first fought in before going to Rome). I can see some nations banning this brutal bloodsport, such as perhaps Helena or Yone (maybe) but I think it would be overall very popular.


NPCs: While I don't really like the idea of NPCs as participants in the actual game, I can see your point on why they would be necessary. However, I think it would be best if they were still kept to a strictly tertiary role, as much as possible. NPCs in Auctions should be there entirely as foils to keep the bids reasonably high, and to provide some reality.. Very few slaves, I would imagine, go unsold at Auctions. An occasional NPC Power-player wouldn't be a bad thing either, if the people managing the game wanted to do something of this sort to create a sort of back plot.
As for "programming" the NPCs, Perhaps a few descriptive adjectives to describe the style to which they train their slaves (ie Aggressive, Defensive, etc.) and their level of experience in training slaves (novice, experienced, expert, master, etc.) should give the Master of Ceremonies a good guideline on how to play their slaves in the Arena.

As for NPCs in roles other than gladiator owners, I'm all for that. I'm pretty sure I include several ideas for staff (trainers, chirurgeons, retainers, thugs/bodyguards, etc.)

Travel: Definitely. That's why I included the Admin. Role of Mapper/Resource Tracker. I'd also want to introduce the idea of minor and major arenas. The minor arenas would probably be owned by a small group of nobles in an area, where they can train their fighters and get them a bit of Heat/Renown before taking them as total unknowns to the Major Arenas.

Training: DEFINITELY! I like the idea of buying "baseline" untrained slaves, and then having to train them up using trainer NPCs, other gladiators the player might own, and non-lethal fights in the Minors.

Heat/Renown: Definitely. I love the ideas you put forth in the other thread, I've just been trying to figure out how to distill it down to a simpler, streamlined form, and incorporate it with what I already had.

Purses: Essential. There will be an entry fee for any actual gladiators put into a bout, whether it be the Majors or the Minors, so a purse is essential to recoup the loss for the winner. I don't think I'd require an entry fee for placing untrained mooks into the battle to increase the deathcount, though. Instead, I would think that the owner would get paid a small amount, because he's most likely to lose those slaves, and it's really a service to the arena that he puts them in.

Retirement: Sure. At the player's discretion a gladiator may retire, either because he won his freedom, or the owner decided to make him a trainer, whatever. The actual reason is unimportant in my opinion, as the player will still own the character, and may bring them out of retirement if they choose. Alternately, characters actually retired rather than just becoming trainers or whatever could use some of the suggestions made by Mike involving Heat/Renown.

Terminology: Definitely important. I think that we should use the terms I've created for now, but if you can think of something that sounds better or is more appropriate, then we can use that. So long as we all know what each term means in reference to the game, we're good.

On price: First off, every owner gets a single Gladiator absolutely free, made using standard character creation rules, as per the restrictions put forth in the original write-up I did. (I can send this to you guys again, if you want to have it for easy reference) After that, I think your baseline gladiator will be, as you've suggested, untrained. Trained gladiators can be bought through auctions from NPCs or other PCs. Captured slaves can also be bought at auctions, though these should perhaps have some sort of trait which represents how rebellious they might be. For that matter, all gladiators could have this... Perhaps call it Spirit, and have it effect their Heat/Renown ratings in certain instances. It would definitely be an interesting trade off...

You buy a bladeslinger who was captured.. Your assessment of his skill when you bought him was based on the fact that you heard how he'd slaughtered 6 of his 15 captors before he was finally subdued.. And he killed them with a shortsword, because he'd been taken by surprise, and couldn't get to his greatsword. However, he'd definitely have a very high Spirit rating, which would make him hard to manage. You'd end up having to buy more body-guards to keep him in line, and you'd have to spend quite a bit of money to placate him, in order to bring his Spirit rating into manageable levels.

"I hear he killed 3 of your guards last week in an attempt to escape."
"Aye, that he did. But the purse he brought me yesterday was more than those guards were worth by a far shot."
"I'd have him beaten regularly. That would break his spirit, I'm sure."
"Aye, probably. But the crowds love his spirit. I keep him just happy enough that he doesn't try to run away often, but spirited enough to win fights."
"Must be a hard balance. Not worth it if you ask me, but it's your stable."

So, this is my current take on it, gentlemen. What say you?

I had a long reply, to the previous message but i think the site crashed for an hour or so....

I guess the thing to decide now.. are we trying to build this to the mini-supplement or possibly even full supplement level.

This is rapidly expanding towards 30+ pages of print and I think that is conservative. I don't mind working hard on fleshing it out... but I think we need to decide where we are taking it so we all understand what we are doing. I have been trying to compile and edit some of this in PDF format without artwork already.

If we are going the (mini)suplement route do we want to start a new forum so we don't take over half of the first RoS page with Gladiator subject threads? I don't mind having people observe the process and comment on things.... More of a courtesy issue to Jake. We could put up installments of sections we want comment on from time to time... definately a good idea.

I wouldn't expect you two to like it if I tried to publish the joint efforts of three of us for my profit... nor would I expect RoS Officail sanction for doing so if you were unhappy and it looked like I was stabbing you in the back...

The more I look at this, the more worthy I believe this is of such publishing. Right now there seem to be three of us deep into this At least thats how I see myself, Wolfen and Mike Holmes (hope i got the names right from memory). If you guys don't think i'm pulling my weight in ideas and work I'll back off the thread and just do my own variant for the game I have starting in 6 days. I dragged this forward from page three because I saw an awesome idea that had seemed to go dormant in an unfinished state. Certainly it dropped off the public discussion.

Comments?

Right now, as is, I see this as something to offer for free. Perhaps if it ever does get to the 30+ pages stage, it might be something to consider payment for, but it really doesn't much matter to me. I came up with the idea because I love to create, and I love this game, not because I even wanted to publish. Due to this perspective, I'm not immensely concerned about giving credit or how much weight you pull.

As for how to discuss this, we'll have to use some format which we can all see. This means either a message board (such as this one) or an e-mail list. Whichever option works best for you guys is cool with me. I've even got an E-group on Yahoo that I intend to use for my own game stuff, once I get back to where I can focus on them. It's not currently in use, so we can use it if that's the option you like.

To tell the truth i never even considered the supplement thing till it came up in relation to Myrios... never thought about it... but i see this still growing. We could do that.. I was thinking that since we are already here it might be easiest to open another forum on THE FORGE
That has the slight disadvantage that we have to go looking for it... the advantage of maintaining threads...

If you like the mailing list idea better... I would recommend doing it as a newsgroup so we can maintain multiple threads and branchings. I've never looked at newsgroups from a security standpoint (if thats a major concern) I know they can be moderated though. I'd prefer a newsgroup setting over a e-mail list or a yahoo group because it winds up easily downloaded on my machine with treads maintained.

Fora here are reserved for entire games in production. I think that this is too derivative of TROS to count. I'd go for a mailing list or whatever, tho.

Mike

Ok thanks, i didn't know how that was handled... a brief look on the Forge.. didn't reveal the answer to me... and I Definately do not want to generate an entire magic and combat system that would just be inferrior to Riddle anyway.

Ok thanks, i didn't know how that was handled... a brief look on the Forge.. didn't reveal the answer to me... and I Definately do not want to generate an entire magic and combat system that would just be inferrior to Riddle anyway.

Not wanting to take over large parts of Jakes forum. Nor wanting to use the Forge in ways that it might not be intended we are looking at relocating this thread.

The good Folks from Myrios have offered some space to us in another forum. We are testing it out and may be there long term. To follow the gladiator thread we are currently at:

http://www.protoreality.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=48

If it doesn't work out for us there, we'll keep you updated.

thirstyViking Said in ongoing GLADIATOR development wrote:
I'm running a Campaign and a Gladiator League. The Campaign will have limited interaction with league.. Capturing beasts... seeing an auction when they enter a town... Fighting the guys from another country that try to enslave them... Freeing a captured friend before the caravan gets out of town... buying thier friends freedom if they fail.... maybe even fighting in the arena themselves to secure his freedom....

The sweaty, gap-toothed man looked us over. After a long time measuring the the firmness of our intent., he replied: "Ok, so you want Darien back? I paid GOOD money for him, but I think we can make a Deal. I'll give him to you a week from Thursday. You can pick him up on the floor of the arena. All 6 of you and Darien. All you have to do is make it out the open gate at the far end... <sinester Laughter> Do we have a Deal?"

For the benefit of those here, I'll make a brief reply here... I think that it would take immense amounts of coordination to run a league and a regular game of TRoS concurrently, but I see it being very, very cool if it works out. Let me know how this works, definitely.

ah, well I don't intend on it being a common cross. But in the right areas there may be some interaction. More I was asking for Ideas on Plot hooks that i haven't thought of that may flesh out that aspect of the game world to players who aren't involved in it.

Lot of creative guys here... thought i'd ask for help.