For a good while now I've been looking for a fresh approach to the basics of naval and space combat. The sea and space monster posts recently got me thinking about it more, and the impressive Laura Dekker making it round the world is the breeze it needs.If you missed the monster posts, they were the spaceship-sized monsters, Green Star Whales and Lithusian Megashark at Hereticwerks, the later batch of epic-sized monsters at Swords & Stitchery, the look at leviathans at From the Sorcerer's Skull and this post on possible kraken miniatures at 1/72 Multiverse.
I'm calling the approach Derelict for the moment and you should see why as you go. I want it to be simple but finely graded, and scalable and open-ended in how it can be used. Here are the basics I have in mind, the essence and the general thinking.
Representation or recording
Each vessel would be represented or recorded as a cluster of one or more dice placed in contact in an arrangement reflecting the structure of the vessel.
Each die would correspond to one section of hull, with the number face up being current integrity; the die would be turned to a new number as damage was suffered or repaired.
Each die would correspond to one section of hull, with the number face up being current integrity; the die would be turned to a new number as damage was suffered or repaired.
Dice could be stacked to represent extra decks or elements of superstructure and larger clusters could just be placed on a simple tray to make moving them together easier.
Each die could have one or more functions attached. For example, it could be a battery with a number of volleys equal to the current integrity, split between any open faces.
Non-graduated functions could be wrecked or go offline at half-damage. One point of integrity could be repaired by rolling equal to or under the location's current integrity, representing increasing inability to respond as crew are killed and systems ruined.
If a location was reduced to zero, it would be removed and the vessel would split.
If a location was reduced to zero, it would be removed and the vessel would split.
Opposed resolution
If integrity represented both the resistance and strength of a location, opposed resolution in interactions between vessels could simply involve rolling a number of dice and aiming to reach or to beat a target number with each, with the number of dice rolled determined by the acting location's integrity, the target number by the integrity of the target location.
In the case of standard attacks, equalling the number could reduce location integrity by one point; beating it could do one point and wreck or knock offline its system. If the roll was double the number, the actor could roll once against each adjacent location.
Movement
If integrity was also assumed to represent mass, it would be possible to see at a glance generally how a variable would move a vessel, and movement could be a composite.
One point of propulsion, or one point of wind on a mast, or one point of current, or one point of impact damage - we'll call it one point of force - could move one point of integrity one unit of distance. Drift would be either constant in space or falling on a surface.
If the force is lateral and not centred, the vessel could rotate first, through 45° per unit of distance normally moved. The location that would function as the centre of rotation could be found by looking at the integrity across the whole vessel and finding the mid-point.
For movement over a surface, overall speed and direction taking into account all forces could shown by a die placed just away from the vessel, the number face up representing speed and a line drawn from the vessel's centre through the die marking direction.
For movement in space, the number on that die could be height, and the die itself could be placed in the position the vessel will occupy next turn. A die midway along the line could show next turn's orientation in three dimensions, the single pip the marker. Two more dice placed beside the vessel could be current height and orientation. Rotation in space could then be altered to 90° for practicality and simplicity with the extra variables.
All of this could be summarised on the movement tray using specific spaces for dice.
Dynamism
There are too many factors not yet quantified to say how it would play, but maneouvring and wearing down and breaking up vessels would likely be a key feature. That could lend a sense of doom to the later stages of a game, a desperate struggling against the odds, and if so, it would make sense to highlight the potential for quick thinking, big pushes and last gasps by having some of the functions given to locations part transferable.
For movement in space, the number on that die could be height, and the die itself could be placed in the position the vessel will occupy next turn. A die midway along the line could show next turn's orientation in three dimensions, the single pip the marker. Two more dice placed beside the vessel could be current height and orientation. Rotation in space could then be altered to 90° for practicality and simplicity with the extra variables.
All of this could be summarised on the movement tray using specific spaces for dice.
Dynamism
There are too many factors not yet quantified to say how it would play, but maneouvring and wearing down and breaking up vessels would likely be a key feature. That could lend a sense of doom to the later stages of a game, a desperate struggling against the odds, and if so, it would make sense to highlight the potential for quick thinking, big pushes and last gasps by having some of the functions given to locations part transferable.
More as I think of it or revise it. Any thoughts?
_
12 responding:
I'm less equiped to comment on the rules you offer, but I have to thank you (as always) for calling to my attention stuff I had missed. With the sometimes manic output of Hereticwerks and Swords & Stitchery, I can't keep up with all the great stuff they put out!
No trouble. I know what you mean - they each feel like they're run by a large team of great minds.
From my earliest days of staring through F.C. Parkers shop window in one of Cardiff's victorian arcades, at the 'Traveller' boxed games lined up for display, I would day dream of such gameplay. Derelict vessels drifting through space because of god-knows-what? Boarding actions, piracy, etc. Brilliant stuff, and Traveller gave you the rules for all this, but boy, was it complex!
So I'm all for a simplified, yet encompassing rules system for such a game setting.
Nice system--we've run several different 'Derelictcrawls' and the like at conventions but never quite like this. You've just created a great sub-system that could easily be grafted onto Rogue Space or just about any other Sci-Fi rules-system for handling these kinds of situations! Heck, you could adapt this one step further for breaking into autonomous arcologies like the Colossi in Riskail...or assaulting Deep One Wet-Bunkers...or raiding orbital habitats...
Great work! And thanks for the shout out regarding the Rogue Space posts. It is a fun rules set!
@ EvilDM - That's some imagery, and it's very inspiring. I've been tweaking bits and pieces and I'll keep at it - it would be good to get a visual example up especially. I got that with rulesets too, all the staring and imagining, and it's hard for products to live up to it, and maybe all the harder the larger their intended audience is. Another reason to be brewing our own games, tailored much more to what we're after, bringing those dreams to life. It's a lot of fun of course, and good for an ageing mind..!
@ garrisonjames - Hopefully it could cover that, make possible the very small interacting with the very big. The arcology idea is intriguing, and it should work for war machine combat too, maybe with different environmental influences. It would also be good to keep it a subsystem at core, to have the thing so simple in essence that all the data you need to play would be right there on the table with the vessel itself, on dice and tray only, and the tray could just be a piece of thin card of course, marked up with slots.
I´m finding setting up a set of decent realistic but fun rules nigh on impossible. I´ve been looking through sites, your included, trying to get more ideas to set up a card "suprise/random event" system...not as easy as it seemed...grrrrr :-D
btw..you´re good at spotting stuff in the model/ganing blogging world..did you see this?;
http://figoblogotheque.blogspot.com/2012/01/meilleur-blog-de-lannee-best-blog-of.html
It´s been going since the 1st of january. I thought I got around the blogs I follow at a pretty regular basis but no mention anywhere until yesterday from pousseplomb blog :-/
Cheers
paul
Great idea...you could even factor in other types of dice (ten-sided etc) for other elements...
@ Paul's Bods - Yep, finding a balance like that isn't easy. What do you need it for exactly - maybe we can get some crowdsourcing going? I hadn't heard of that event, and in fact I don't think I'd even visited the blog before, which is still a common thing. I was wandering for a few minutes yesterday and found a lot more I'd probably never seen. It's pretty busy out there, and that's very cool.
@ G - That could work, especially for relatively advanced technologies or strange phenomena. The clustering and stacking would be more difficult, but if slots were being used, not impossible. Maybe custom D6s could also be integrated in some way.
I think a rather sweet plotline would be a space version of the 'Marie Celeste' - a ghost vessel that appears randomly in areas of space, often within sight of trade routes, or remote space stations. The vessel itself I could imagine to be an ageing old hulk of some description? Possibly a gargantuan military or naval vessel, the looks of which causes witnesses to remark at how 'damaged and wrecked' it appeared. Maybe the vessel is stuck within a flux field of some description? Possibly have it stuck within a black hole that spews it out at random places then sucks it back in again after an unspecified time lapse. Whichever way you cook it, that could be a nice slant on the boarding action/salvage rights operation for players. And who knows what else might be lurking within its depths after all this time being lost in space...
You should be writing games yourself - that's evocative. It's similar to the premise of GW's Space Hulk, but I like the idea it might be a single vessel rather than a composite, and there could be an anomaly behind it. Plenty of distinct ship and anomaly permutations could be generated using random tables, even before we get to specific layouts. There's a pdf due for the Worldboat collaboration with a hard sci-fi / science fantasy 8 x 1d100 table for internal features, and that might be good inspiration for this kind of thing too. There's more on that project at Hereticwerks, at Lunching on Lamias and here, with this post having a lot of the thinking behind the table. Have a look at an old game from White Dwarf too, Warmaster. It was simple in essence, but captured the natures of some standard shipboard locations well.
What I'm working on at the moment is a ship to tie in with the Empyre setting and a key incident to go with it, but I don't know how soon that will see the light of day. If you want to run with any of the mechanics, add to them or take the thing in a new direction, we can definitely get some back and forth going, maybe with a view to putting together an open community ruleset.
Sir Porky - you are too kind, but alas, my inspiration is derived from owning the aforementioned 'Space Hulk' game (play that with the Aliens soundtrack filling the room!), Traveller, and the following films: 'Alien', 'Aliens', 'Event Horizon' and the so-so 'Lost in Space' remake. But I think Games workshop did it best in the very early days of Space Hulk... oh, and more recently, my reading of the WH40K 'Horus Heresy' series of books - just love the idea of rebellion/mutiny.
The concept of ships having a modular hit point system appeals to me also, so that damage can be location specific - for disabling avionics, gun turrets, engine bays, etc - or spread over several areas for a weakening effect to lessen collateral damage if salvage is upper most in a player's mind.
As for collaborating, this is a very appealing prospect, and considering my final year project at uni (my course was in graphic design) was a board game, and previously created two other games, one board game and one pbm fantasy game, none of which have seen the light of day, sadly. Plus, as you are aware from following my blog, my past is firmly rooted as a dm in D&D rpg, so I'm no stranger to dealing with rules creation, floor plans, sketches, etc. Currently I'm still nursing my fledgling story on my blog, 'A Matter of the Heart', though I'm still not sure where it's going or when it will end - but I'm having fun with it. Just hope folks are enjoying reading it as much as I enjoy writing it.
But all that aside, I would like to offer input and a sharing of ideas should you so wish it, so please feel free to contact me whenever - direct email would be preferable. Until then, sir, I wish you the very best of luck :o)
I agree on the early Space Hulk materials and that certain mood of movie, especially where there are physical models being used, not to mention the scope of Traveller, and the impact it had, even the way it carried through into open-ended computer games like Elite and Frontier. That's a potent base of concepts ready to inspire. That modularity is key for me too, also for the way it could allow interactions which might not be clear at this stage, for keeping those horizons wide open in mechanical form. Again, there's no knowing how the process will look, but if there's anything I think you might like to know about in advance, I'll definitely write. In the meantime, good luck to you too with the story. You should stick at it for as long as the passion is there and the ideas flowing and the work is so good, soaking up that fun and seeing where it leads.
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