Hyenid Counters

And here are counters for the Hyenids, the foe that the Legion will fight in this campaign.

Top - brutes (heavy infantry) + giant hyenas (beasts)

Middle - packs (warbands)

Bottom - hunters (bows) + more giant hyenas

Here is the Hyenid general, with standard and drummer (with a human-skin drum)

And shamans.

Imperial Counters

I already gamed a battle in my fantasy setting using my old, generic counters. However, I decided to make counters specific to my factions. I began doodling around,

Here is a set for the Aurelian Empire.

Top - auxiliaries (medium infantry) in leather armor

Middle - legionaries (heavy infantry) in steel armor + a bolt thrower (artillery)

Bottom - scouts (light infantry) + flame throwers (artillery)

The flame throwers are inspired by Greek fire.

I also created a commander counter with a flag and trumpeter. They all wear fancy gold armor.

And some more troops.

• Left - a cleric radiating holy light protected by 2 templar guards in gold armor.
• Middle and right - 2 allied warbands. Since this campaign is set in not-Egypt, I made the allies desert nomads.

This gives me all the possible troops types for an Aurelian army. Next up are the hyenids.

So far, I am very happy with the results. I know that they are crude, but they will do the job. I am pleased so far.

A New Campaign - Fantasy Imperials

Inspired by some suggestions made by Geoff (aka elliesdad) on a recent post, I decided to start a new campaign.

The Setting

As mentioned, I plan to run the campaign in my LARP's setting. It will follow an as-of-now unnamed Legion from the Aurelian Empire, which is a Roman-like state.

An AI creation from Gencraft.
I'm playing around with AI illustrations for some of my posts.

Note: I'm not doing the Chimera Legion, which is my LARP group. Their battles will strictly be LARP battles.

QUESTION: What should I name my Legion? I have an idea but am looking for others.

Legion Make-up

Horses do not exist in this setting so there is no cavalry. To make things more interesting, I added a variety of foot types. These are the unit available to the Legion.

• Regulars - standard heavy infantry. I decided not to make any distinction between spears and blades. Despite the historical performance of Roman infantry, I'm not convinced that blades are inherently better than spears. I think training and experience are far more important factors.
• Auxiliaries - medium infantry that still fight in heavy infantry formations. The most common troop type in the legion.
• Warbands - allied tribal warriors. Fierce but brittle.
• Scouts - bow-armed light infantry.
• Artillery - bolt throwers or other types of siege weapons.

For battles, I will randomly determine the Legion's make-up.

Handling Enemies

As Geoff suggested, I will hide enemy troops types until Legion troops make contact. This will introduce an additional element of fog of war.

Representing the Armies

For now, I'm going to use my current armies of counters. Eventually I want to make counters representing all the different troop types.

I plan to make enemy counters two-sided. One side will show the troops in formation and in such a way that I can distinguish the type. The other side will have a generic block of troops representing an unknown body of enemies.

The Palmyra Campaign

I toyed with running a campaign against the Dark Magi, which are my Persian stand-ins. However, our most recent LARP campaign featured a war against the Dark Magi. I did not want to repeat it. 

In the end, I decided to set my miniature campaign in Palmyra (not-Egypt). The main enemy on this front is the Hyenids, as I call them. They are essentially D&D gnolls.

The Hyenid Army

These are the troop types found in the Hyenid armies.

• Elite Warriors - essentially the equivalent of heavy infantry.
• Warbands - masses of ravenous but undisciplined warriors.
• Bows - missile armed.
• Beasts - various ferocious animals, such as giant hyenas.

Considering Counters on a Wasted Wednesday

Rather than playing a game while my wife watched her programs last night, I pondered a new project.

The Aurelian Campaigns

I thought about starting some campaigns set in my LARP's world. The first campaign would feature the Aurelian legions (inspired by Rome) against the hordes of the Dark Magi.

Seems like it would be easy to do using MicroBattle and my counters. But there is where I hit a snag. In my LARP's world, there is no cavalry. The cost and risk make horses impractical for a LARP. In game terms, we explained this lack by declaring that horses went extinct. It's a trick I picked up from Empire LARP.

This leaves me with a conundrum. My counters are very generic and only feature 2 types of infantry, 2 of cavalry, and 1 artillery (which is really for horse & musket games). It seems to me that dropping cavalry leaves the armies as sadly uniform and monotonous.

An army of my homemade counters

The solution is obvious - add more infantry types. I took a look at HoTT and it includes blades, spears, warband, shooters along with specialty types like clerics, magicians, and other fantastical creatures. Seems perfect for this world. But now I need to create more counters!

Meanwhile in Phandalin

After their defeat at Axeholm, Ser Killian has embarked on his next quest. I haven't finished it yet so I have no write-up. Unfortunately, I've been distracted and haven't returned to the game yet.

Character Development

Actually, this post is about how I am developing character rules for my latest version of Micro Quest. I just jotted down some random thoughts.

Classes

Last year's version of MQ (MQ22) only had 3 classes - fighters, rogues, and sages. For compatibility with D&D, I'd like to include the full panoply of major classes. 

• Add fighter sub-classes - barbarian, monk, ranger, and paladin
• Split sage into bard, cleric, druid,  and magic-user.

I plan on streamlining abilities so I can fit a character's stats on one line of an index card.

Levels

MQ22 mashed characters into 6 levels. This means I had to convert from D&D to MQ levels. Not that it was difficult; I generally just divided by 2. But it dawned on me that I don't to convert because I derive target numbers from relative levels.

I may still have character levels cap out around level 10 or so. In AD&D, that's about when characters become eligible to settle down and run a fief.

I will still likely create my own leveling charts, probably based on quests completed rather than killing stuff or finding treasure.

Ability Scores

MQ22 dispensed with ability scores. I assumed that fighters are strong, sages are intelligent, and rogues are dexterous. But this negates some opportunities for characterization. For example, I found it amusing that my character Tweedle turned out to be a bit rash.

A previous version of MQ allowed for strengths and weaknesses. I will resurrect this mechanic in some fashion to add a little flavor. I think I will assume that characters are average for all characteristics and then roll to see if they have a strength or weakness.

Axeholm's Upper Level

 A Ser Killian Adventure

Spoiler Alert - The following adventure is based on the D&D adventure Dragon of Icespire Peak. You may not want to read this if you plan to play that adventure.

A Burial

After defeating the ghoul, the way is open to the upper level.

"Let's go," a grim but determined Killian commands.

"Wait!" Martin interjects. "If we leave Gruff's body, he will turn into a ghoul. We need to cremate him, quickly!"

The party finds a fireplace, and then sends their comrade off to the heavens.

The Upper Level

With that sad duty performed, the remaining party members head up the stairs.

The Chambers

They find themselves in a wing with a series of bedchambers. In one, the floor gives way, dropping Killian and Haiden to the floor below. Both are bruised, but Martin uses a rope to pull them back up.

The Gallery

The gallery looks down upon the great hall in the lower level. Fortunately, they have no encounters.

The Bastion

This area features arms and defensive works to protect the stronghold. Unfortunately, it was unable to protect the dwarves from a spy, an elven maiden working for the enemy. They killed her, but now she roams the halls as a banshee. And our heroes find her.

The banshee immediately shrieks, and Martin falls unconscious!

Killian and Haiden rush to the attack. This begins a long drawn out combat. They are unable to hit the banshee, but her attacks do not penetrate their armor.

Then Haiden has an idea! He rushes to Martin's body and dumps the contents of his pack. Phials of holy water spill out. Haiden flings it at the banshee. His aim is off, however, and it simply splashes at the banshee's feet.

The banshee attacks Haiden. She hits and he slumps to the ground. He is severely wounded.

Killian reacts. "Grab Martin and get out of here! I'll hold off the banshee!"

Haiden crawls over to Martin and begins pulling him towards the exit.

Meanwhile, Killian grabs a holy water phial. The banshee rushes him. At the last second, he splashes holy water in her face. She screams in pain and rage, then disappears.

"Is it dead?" Haiden gasps.

They hear ghostly wails and screams.

"I don't think so," Killian replies. "But she is hurt. We better get out of here before she comes back."

The Escape

Killian picks up Martin then helps Haiden hobble through the halls of Axeholm. Fortunately, they do not meet any resistance, and they escape from the haunted stronghold.

That night they make camp. Killian heals Martin, but the cleric is barely conscious. He will need rest to fully heal.

Ultimately, they make it back to Phandalin.

One day, Winston, Killian's confessor and former comrade in arms, sees Killian praying in the temple they've been building.

Winston approaches. "Do not blame yourself, my son."

Killian looks at him and wanly smiles. "I don't know if that's possible, Brother. But that's not what's on my mind. I am thinking of Axeholm. But not about what happened. I'm thinking about what will happen. You see, I have a clever plan..."

Stay tuned for more adventures of Ser Killian!

THOUGHTS

You might think that I would see this disaster as a negative, but I see it as a great success! Maybe not for Killian, but it was for MicroQuest.

I think my changes generally worked well.

• Mapping the dungeon, even in a simple manner, was more effective than just rolling for encounters.
• My character changes seem to work. I'll detail these in a later post.

Furthermore, despite my characters' failures, the session was suspenseful and exciting! That's hard to do in a solo RPG. When it happens, it's a great feeling.

I just can't wait to see how Killian responds to Axeholm!

Investigating Axeholm Redux

A Ser Killian Adventure

Spoiler Alert - The following adventure is based on the D&D adventure Dragon of Icespire Peak. You may not want to read this if you plan to play that adventure.

The Quest

After the adventure against the wererats, our heroes return triumphant to Phandalin.

There, Harbin Wester, the townmaster, has news. Adabra Gwynn of Umbrage Hill recently spotted the dragon. Wester is concerned that it may soon attack Phandalin. He wants to relocate to a more secure location. To that end, he asks the party to scout the dwarven ruins of Axeholm.

The Journey

Axeholm is about a day south of Phandalin. Their journey is easy. On the way, they meet a cleric named Martin. He joins the party.

WAIT A MINUTE! 

Haven't we heard this before?!

Why yes. Back in February I began the Axeholm adventure. But now that I making changes to MicroQuest, I decided to experiment using my Icespire Peak characters. I figured I should start the adventure from scratch.

Changes

I'll elaborate some of the changes to the characters in an upcoming post. For now, let me mention a change in how I run the dungeon.

In February, I experimented with a map-less dungeon. Essentially, it took a certain number of encounters for the party to reach a major milestone, such as reaching a boss. Honestly, it felt a little flat.

This time, I decided to use a simplified version of the dungeon map. As you can see in the picture, I divided the lower level into 5 distinct wings. I decreed that each wing will have up to 2 encounters.

You can also see my character sheet in the picture. I managed to streamline it so I could fit the entire party on one index card!

The Lower Level

Here is the true story of Ser Killian's adventure in Axeholm.

Axeholm's lower level

Entrance

The great gates at the main entrance are locked but somehow Gruff manages to unlock the doors. Hmmm. May need to watch out for him.

The party runs into 4 ghouls.

The party (colors) vs, ghouls (black)

Haiden and Gruff manage to kill 2 each.

The Hall

In the great hall, 2 stirges attack the party. One latches onto Gruff but Martin manages to kill it while Haiden knocks down the second.

The Throne Room

An arrow trap drives them back before they can reach the stairs to the upper level. Gruff is now badly wounded but Martin partially heals him.

The Barracks

The party finds the stairs up, but a ghoul guards the path. Our heroes get the drop on it and attack. Haiden manages to slice off one arm while Killian opens up its abdomen. Stinking black blood and guts spill out.

Two critical hits in one turn. The thing is almost dead!

But the ghoul still has some fight in it. It lunges forward and grabs Gruff by the neck. It pulls him towards it, then it rips out Gruff's throat with its teeth!

Oh no, another critical!

The ghoul lord drops Gruff's carcass and turns on Killian. Martin rushes to Gruff's side and tries to heal him, But Gruff's lifeblood continues to spill from his body.

Killian finishes off the ghoul, then tries to help Gruff. He lays on hands, but he fails.

Gruff is dead.

Both Martin and Killian rolled 1's when trying to heal Gruff. I took that as a sign that it was not meant to be.

What next for our heroes? Find out tomorrow!

Delving into Dungeon Crawls

As I mentioned, I planned on playing a solo D&D adventure last week, but I lost my rules. I have since found them, but I have some ideas for improvements. This has led me onto a path of re-evaluating my design. 

DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS

As part of my re-evaluation process, I decided to jot down some of my design goals.

Simplicity

In general, this is a major goal for my designs. I prefer games where I don't have to refer frequently to the rules or to charts. I also want to minimize math. I don't want to add a bunch of modifiers to determine results, especially since I tend to roll for all characters simultaneously.

D6, or maybe D12

I have a bunch of D6's lying around. I want to use them. I also have some D12's and sometimes consider using them instead. Something to consider.

Party on a Postcard

Actually, an index card, but you get the idea. Currently, I have each character on an index card, but I am not keen on shuffling among them. I'd like to minimize the stats for each character so that I can fit the entire party on one side of an index card. This may be a tall order, in which case I'll go up to a 4 x 6 inch card.

Convertibility

Although I have complained about the Dragon of Icespire Keep module, I like the idea of using published D&D modules. Therefore, I'd like to be able to convert easily from D&D to my system. Details to be determined.

NEXT STEPS

Where do I go from here?

• I think the core MicroQuest system is solid. I'm looking to tweak this system so that it meets my design considerations.
• I'm starting with character generation. I'd like to include all the core D&D classes. I'll need to look into ways to differentiate them without too much crunch.
• Right now I'm reading various versions of D&D for ideas.

I'll continue to post on my progress until GADD steers me away from this project.

Wasted Wednesday

Lately my wife has taken to watching a political podcast that airs on Wednesday nights. This gives me an opportunity to get in some gaming.

This past Wednesday, I planned to resume my Dragons of Icespire Keep campaign. I left off in February, with the party investigating Axeholm, an abandoned dwarven stronghold. But I could not find my latest RPG rules. As a result, I played nothing.

Despite this failure, I hope to make Wednesday gaming a regular occurrence.