Got absolutely flattened by covid. Now on day 6 I am starting to be able to think thoughts beyond "guh" and "blergh" again, but it will definitely be a bit of a grind for a little bit. 

More news shortly as things get back to normal.

In todays game example, we look at Renegade Scout and how hidden troops work in the game (and why).

Renegade Scout inherits the option for troops to hide behind cover from its ancestors: A unit moving at the normal movement rate and ending its move within or right behind terrain can Shelter. This lets troops keep their heads down, but comes at the cost of not firing weapons or moving above the cautious movement rate. As a player you will need to prioritise when speed is of the essence compared to safety.

Sheltering troops can be fired on if you have a clear line of sight, for example by moving around the terrain they are hiding behind. 

Alternatively you can make a spotting check. This is a roll of 2D6 + the Observation score. Figures can shoot at any sheltering enemy within this range in inches. So if you roll a 7 with Observation 4, you can fire at sheltering troops within 11 inches. 

Units roll once but each figure applies its own Observation score, so it is possible that some firers will be able to shoot and others will not. Gun crews benefit from better fire control, so they always use the single best Observation score in the crew. 

Personality figures get a small advantage in that you have a -1 penalty to spot them. In the above example a Personality figure would have to be within 10 inches to be spotted. 

So what changed?

Compared to Rogue Trader and 40K 2e, Renegade Scout makes hidden troops a bit easier to attack. If you are at "firefight" ranges you can generally fire on them, making it an option more suited to middle range encounters. This also helps promote more aggressive play. 

A notable change is that in the original rules, once you were spotted the status was removed. In Renegade Scout this only happens if you are charged. Otherwise only the spotting figure is able to shoot. This was needed to balance out the higher chance of spotting and prevent defensive positions from being plastered with heavy weapon fire right away. 

I will be joining forces with friend of the show "Ax Anax" (https://www.youtube.com/@axanax2534 ) to do a twice a month tabletop gaming chat / voice hangout where we will talk about topics related to miniatures gaming (and independent minis gaming in particular) as well as just shooting the breeze about whatever comes to mind. More to follow once I know what a schedule will look like.

The idea is to do the hangouts live so people can listen in and post questions and comments, but you can also catch up after the fact on his youtube channel. 

Todays retrospective is Starport Scum. In many ways this can be thought of as a sister to Five Parsecs: More open ended, less exacting and more GM oriented. 

The rules are well suited to a similar sort of "freelancers just scraping out a living" with random job tables, but assume a bit more handiwork in getting a game going. They are playable solo (and a fair few tools are provided along with various random tables) but also support pick up and convention play, particularly as it is pretty easy to detail a character.

Instead of stats, characters use traits like "GUN SLINGER" or "FAST" which mostly add dice to rolls, but can also have more specific functions. Like many things in the game, traits can be built to be very specific or can be ruled on the fly. 

Combat is a simple dice pool approach: Tally up dice, roll and count successes. The typical game can range from a couple of figures to probably 10-12 per side, with 3 figure grunt squads and single characters being the norm. 

There are also a number of expansions available, fleshing out and detailing the rules further.

You can check out the game here https://www.wargamevault.com/product/188598/Starport-Scum 

With Usurper 2 just out, the obvious post for today is a few examples of how things work. 

Let us say our intrepid hero Bimf the Barbarian is planning to do some prime looting, however his considerable ambition is blocked by a locked door in his path. 

Bimf have had it explained to him that battering down doors, while satisfying, makes noise and he is not confident he can fight off all 238 guards that patrol this fortress. So lock picking it is.

The GM decides that picking a lock is well within the possibilities of what Bimf can accomplish and so an Action / Event roll is made. Let's roll 3 times and see how you can interpret various results. 

My first roll is a 91 which is "Success and discovery" 

 Not only does Bimf succeed in this case, but in the process he learns something interesting or useful. The GM might give Bimf's player some information on the guard schedules (so he can dodge them later) or tell him that while he works on the lock, he notices that a lot of the statues in the courtyard look an awful lot like common people from the village but in stone and isn't it weird how their faces are all contorted in fear?

The second roll is a 17, "Failure". 

Bimf did not manage to get what he wanted. Failures cannot be attempted again unless the table says you can do so. In this case, no amount of messing with the lock picks will get Bimf through this door. This is where the Traits come in. If Bimf has a suitable Trait like LOCKPICKING or perhaps ROGUE or even REALLY QUITE CLEVER if the GM is feeling generous, he can "burn" that Trait and roll again. 

The player of Bimf will of course have to narrate how he applies that quality to overcome the obstacle. 

The third is 78, "Success". 

Easy enough: The characters get what they were trying to get out of the situation. In this case the door has been picked and Bimf can proceed to loot the temple (which is certainly not going to be filled with evil monsters). 

What happens if the lock is really high quality? (most medieval locks were not) The GM might rule that this is not possible to a normal person. In this case, Bimf could burn a relevant trait to get an attempt. If as above, he has a trait for ROGUE, the player can burn that to allow a roll. After all a normal person can't pick this master-crafted lock but surely a rogue can do just such a thing. 

This sort of thing is called a Condition and Conditions can also be met in different ways. If the Condition is that the lock is master-crafted, one way to negate the Condition might be to have someone forge you some keys or find a master-crafted set of lockpicks. 

Conditions work best if the GM is open ended in setting up the situation and scenario. It is okay to have some ideas in mind about how it can be solved, but be open to the players suggestions as well. 

Welcome to Usurper.

https://www.wargamevault.com/product/494826/Usurper-2-Procedural-Fantasy-Roleplaying 

With the release of the 2nd edition of Usurper, I wanted to talk a bit about what the game is and what the rulebook includes.

Usurper is a fantasy roleplaying game, you know with the characters and the adventures and all that. It allows you to have exciting adventures in a fantasy world with strange gods and stranger dungeons, where lords battle for control and factions knife each other in the dark. 

The core of the game is the use of traits instead of skill values and stats. Your character is described by a series of traits such as being STRONG, LOYAL TO THE CAUSE or FORESTER.
When you try to do things in the game, your traits lets you roll twice and pick the best result or attempt an action that isn’t normally possible.

Actions are resolved on the “action/event table”. This is a D100 table providing the outcome of an action. This might mean your action succeeds, it may fail with a consequence occurring or your action may even be interrupted. Everything in the game is driven by this table and it helps spur interesting, unexpected and exciting moments in the game.
You pick the lock to the tower and not only do you succeed, but you make a discovery while doing so. Maybe you overhear the guards talk about how there’s a strange package being delivered by ship tomorrow night? 

Best of all this means gameplay is math free. Roll the dice and you know what happened. If you have a relevant trait, burn it and roll again then pick the outcome you prefer. Roll and move on.

The game includes explanations of how to handle things like group tests, difficult situations and more.
Character creation can be done by simply writing down the traits and convictions you would like or can be generated randomly with a small lifepath system that generates the character in stages of their life. 

NPCs are handled very simply and make it effortless for the GM to add new characters to a campaign. Unless they are a major villain or monster, all they need is a Demeanour (Surly), Motivation (Chase off any intruders) and any Exceptions that apply (can walk on water). Random tables provide additional details if you need a more in-depth NPC.

A world builder chapter provides tables to create your game world history, building exciting cities AND allow the game to progress within that world through random events and story development. There is also a system to reflect characters working to overcome an evil overlord or similar grand quest, rooted in the mechanics.

Rounding out things you get rules for learning magic from the gods, delving into dungeons, ruling a domain and leading an army into war. 

What I want to emphasise here is that the use of random tables is not just petty detail (though we do provide a lot of flavour as well). Instead the tables are created to try to push things towards creating story opportunities: A faction changes its leadership or the evil overlord decides to subvert your allies. Every die roll (we hope!) Drives the game towards something interesting happening.

The game became a bit of a hit with solo gamers, due to the wealth of random generation included and is imminently suitable to solo gaming, when combined with a traditional RPG oracle. It is however also quite playable as a conventional game with a group of players or with one player controlling multiple characters. 

This second edition has had its text cleaned up by the tireless work of Bill Hamilton and should be much easier to use. Almost every aspect has been touched up in some way and I think you will find this to be a much clearer expression of the game and its ideas.

This is also the launch of the game as a “living” rulebook. Updates and additional material will be made available periodically and supported by Patreon. This can include things like scenarios, variant rules, a more conventional spell casting system and more.

This will also allow us to take fan feedback and suggestions into account better. 

The initial release will not feature any art work or flavour text, but will be available at a slightly reduced price. Think of this as similar to a pre-order but you are getting the full game up front and can start playing right away.

Usurper can be purchased here

You can support our ongoing projects at patreon.com/nordicweasel  

You can grab it from https://modiphius.us/collections/five-leagues-from-the-borderlands/products/five-leagues-from-the-borderlands-expansion-2-paths-in-the-wilderness-pdf or from Wargame Vault. 

It covers a vast amount of new material to add to your games, including new origins, magic options, enemies and much more. A particular emphasis this time has been the world map and making that come alive more. 

I will have a post this weekend discussing some of the new material and generally the philosophy that went into it, so stay tuned. 

As a game creator you have to hold two thoughts in your head simultaneously:

A: Everyone says they hate new editions.

B: When yo u do a new edition, everyone gets really excited.

I am not convinced that "perpetual update" / "living rulebooks" are ultimately viable though I am intending to set out to prove that they can be (through Patreon, please consider swinging by!) and if you are aiming at print first and foremost, the option is not really open to you in any event.

I wanted to just chat a bit about some of some of the motivations for a new edition, since I think from the players perspective it can be a bit opaque. (also it is not a given that a new edition costs money. When we went from Renegade Scout 1e to 2e, it was a free upgrade for example).

First you may want to significantly change a core mechanic. My gut feeling is usually that within an edition, it is okay to change up things but it should remain roughly along the same lines and principles. To use an example tweaking how often morale tests are taken or how the modifiers work is not something people will have an issue with. But changing from "break tests" to a multi-tiered morale stage system will be a pretty dramatic departure within an edition. 

My guess here is that when people know it is a new edition they are reading, they are more likely to take bigger changes in stride and give them a try, since it is a clean slate to an extent. 

Second it may be time to just pull the book apart and put it back together. A lot of wargame books have somewhat haphazard organisation and being able to go back through, reorder everything, pull in some new ideas and material and so on can be a really helpful thing. 

When doing this sort of thing within an edition, you risk bothering people who are used to looking up things in the current book ("Okay the morale rules are next to the picture of the guy with the sword"). Once again, when you signal that it is a new edition people will tend to accept that it is time to relearn a bit.

Third the game might just need an overhaul mechanically. A lot of good games will have numerous things the designer would do differently today, has changed their mind about or which just turned out to have a problem that wasn't predicted. I suppose this is another sort of maintenance update where the general approach of the game remains the same (unlike case 1 above) but you go in and root around the fine tuning of all the pieces. 

Now all of these can co-exist and most new editions feature elements of all three.

Finally there is the one nobody likes to admit but a new edition will sell copies. Updating core game rules does not ever correlate to increased sales in my experience. There is likely an indirect effect in that an updated game will stay on its players minds, but the effect is likely fairly small. Meanwhile a new book will show up on the front page of Wargame Vault and gets you a nice pile of cash immediately. It also gets a bit of talk going on the forums and message boards where gamers congregate. 

I want to see if this can be replaced through Patreon, but time will tell on that front. 

Sound off in the comments what you think.

This comes up occasionally, usually in the guise of people who want to assert they are not game designers but merely an amateur in the field. 

So then: What makes someone a game designer? 

If it is a case of simple making a game, then that's a pretty easy answer but I've talked to people who have made games and don't consider themselves game designers? 

When I started out, I don't know if I really did. I usually appended something like "beginning" or "aspiring". At some point along the way, I embraced the term but I don't know that I could say at what point or why. Maybe it was simply that it was something other people said?

So I want to turn it over to the audience: What is it to you? At what point are you a game designer? And at what point are you no longer a "beginner" or "aspiring to be" or "amateur"? 

No End in Sight is one of the earliest titles of the NWG catalogue. It was a result of trying to do a couple of things:

First there was very little in the way of platoon level cold war gaming available. Most of the games at the time were aimed at much larger battles, but I had little interest in those. My main interest has always been the platoon level, where things get personal. 

Second at the time the attitude on the forums online seemed to be that cold war gaming was mostly about turkey shoots where NATO tanks shot up legions of Soviet armour and then everyone got to knock off for tea and biscuits. 

However reading memoirs and books discussing Vietnam, Afghanistan and other conflicts made it seem clear to me that at the individual level, regardless of who is winning or losing in the grand strategic sense, it was going to be messy, grimy and nasty. I wanted a game to reflect that.

So then No End in Sight is something a bit different: Things like soldiers being pinned down, rushing across open gaps without suppressing the enemy first is a gamble as reaction fire is always a threat, the stress builds on your squad leaders as you push them, wounded soldiers have to be contended with. It's a very gritty and messy experience and yet you can run a full mechanised platoon pretty easily and on a small table. 

As a reviewer said "I recently bought No End in Sight, and I think the game better models the central problem of modern infantry combat--crossing that "deadly ground" in the face of enemy opposition---than any other game I've played"

I am slowly going through the book to update it, so this is a perfect time to check out the rules as the updated version will be available to you at no cost. 

https://www.wargamevault.com/product/135451/No-End-in-Sight-Cold-war-and-modern-platoon-combat