Monday 26 November 2012

Nor the battle to the strong (3)

Here's the third batch of cards for the substitute GM deck. In case you missed the first two, it's an attempt to get more colourful events into wargaming rulesets, but without the players needing an arbitrator. It follows up a discussion with Big Jim, but it's not aimed specifically at 40K, or any one system or setting, and it could fit tactical roleplaying too.

The first seven cards in the deck, i.e. Spill, Spark, Plume, Flaw, Gust, Lapse and Agent, can all be found here and there's a general approach to using the deck as a whole here.

The three in this batch cover a spectacular or horrific loss that affects morale, a flock of creatures being disturbed and relocating, as well as birdstrikes, and a slip, suspicion or disagreement that turns into internal conflict or mutiny, possibly even a coup attempt.

As with the earlier batches, this batch can build on the effects of other cards in the deck and bring new effects into play, making it possible to set up interlinked chains of events.






As ever, all feedback is welcome, and the blank card is here if you want to create more.
_

2 comments:

Noah S. said...

One thing I love about the original Necromunda (and a lot of the early GW stuff, especially Rogue Trader), is that they built into it a sense of fun and chaotic randomness that offset the grinding similarity that comes from running long campaigns with the same armies/squads. The random environs rules and a lot of the "roll-on" table rules injected humor and light-heartedness that was in direct contradiction to the "grim darkness of the far future" vibe. I love my Dark Angels and have cared for them forever, and I have a deep fondness for my Orlock gangers and even the Scavvies.

That said, I won't play GW games unless its with the right folks and definitely not at the GW stores - they take themselves far too seriously these days. Nothing worse than a 14 year old rules lawyer quoting passages from some crummy sourcebook telling you why it's frankly not possible for you to win, owing to his eldar farseer's powers are not technically magic use.

I'm ranting now. Anyways, what a great idea; reminds me of the "cut it out yourself" deck of cars they put in the Necromunda add-on book so many years ago

Porky said...

Thanks very much.

I'm fond of Necromunda too, and many of what are now labelled as specialist games, more so as the faint echoes of release seasons come back round. Not so much for the systems maybe as for the scope there was in the games when the energy was high just after the first release, and the GW player base was on more or less the same page.

It always bled away of course, through a lesser or greater lack of support. Of all of them it was possibly the earlier Epic that survived longest, but then there's probably more money in selling us a superheavy tank in 28mm than 6mm, as seems to be more possible now, and maybe that overrode other concerns.

There seems to me to be a slowly clarifying logic in an overlapping constellation of games instead of more monolithic core systems. Time will tell.

As for the cards, White Dwarf and the Citadel Journal did do plenty back then, and for some time there was even that cardboard section in WD. Things like that must have had their effect on us, possibly in ways we'll never quite know.