Keeping track of tracks

If you're using those hunting rules I posted last week, you might be finding it difficult to mark the tracks using only dice unless you have a lot of a given colour or size, especially with large forces.

So here are some counters just in case you don't have any that are suitable. I followed the pattern of the earlier sets, but switched the edging colour to one that should look reasonable over various colours of landscape, whether sand, mud, grass or snow. Feel free to download and print them.
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Shockwaves and drifting

This ties in with three posts - on modelling minefields, the mutant burstworm and space battle drift markers - as well as wider events. It has fiction and some counters.

First the fiction, for Expansion Joints. It has to be 15 words, one of them opening.

Opportunity? Well, it's an opening... But blasted through soft tissues, memories and dreams, chances taken?

In a lot of gaming explosions are taken for granted. As a man in demolition recently put it regarding the Oslo attack "men and boys are interested in gunpowder and bullets and fast cars". The RPG blog Compromise and Conceit has strong thoughts on that insanity.

Of course, the forces in gaming could go beyond outright destruction. On to magnetism maybe, or gravity making a slope more or less easy to climb. There can also be flows, like the water in a river that needs to be forded or the air rushing in a shaft or tunnel.

Recording this might be easier with counters. These have direction of course, and the box means a number can be marked too, predetermined maybe or the result of a roll.

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Drunk and new orderly

A quick post with links to new ideas for gaming, a set of counters and a little fiction.

The fiction is for Flash Fearsday, which I forgot yesterday. The idea is to write a short and hopefully scary narrative. I've gone with game-related and the usual 140 characters.

"Smith! That was out of character." 

"They made me. They're drunk." 

"They?" 

"One's a master, but the others... Our world - to them it's a game!"

If only characters knew what players can put them through. Maybe they do? You can join in at Lunching on Lamias, here, and probably write something scarier than that.

On the subject of keeping a game focused, check out two posts from the top blogroll, one at Unofficial Games and the other at Campaign Mastery. Both suggest kinds of objective, for XP in the latter. Also in the top roll, Vaults of Nagoh has a related tale.

If you're running something in which events matter, these counters might help. Place them on the table or map to record key moments. They're numbered to show order.

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Scrapes (2) - Fungus brew and D6 results

After the horrific injuries of the first in the series, a unit upgrade, this time from Digital Waaagh!, where Auberon has let his interest in the Orks throughout 40K history feed through into a modern take on fungus brew.

More counters to tie in with this, and to give some help with D6 tables and results in general. Where an effect lasts long enough it might be forgotten, just place one of these next to the models to remind you of the number rolled. The '+ -' counter can be used with another number to show a penalty or boost to a stat. Again, they're all yours to modify as you wish; just print to thin card and cut along the divisions.

Scrapes (1) - Horrific injuries

The first of a series on characterful optional rules, mainly for wargames and skirmish games, but possibly inspiring adaptations of other kinds of game too. I'd imagine most gamers collect this kind of rule to try out when an opportunity arises, or incorporate them into their house rules, and the point here is to help in this, by suggesting rules not matching a triffle or drawing attention to rules other gamers are using.

What got me thinking about this most recently was a post at the excellent Tales from the Maelstrom with a couple of their house rules. Have a read of those, and the first comment at least. For me they're simple, but realistic, and they add a lot to gameplay. They're also a reminder of the danger of war and the natural reactions of combatants.

To add to them, how about the need to take a test not only for taking cover nearby, but for approaching too, or modifiers to morale tests for proximity? Perhaps a mechanism to represent the desire to retrieve the remains and remove them from the field?

If you decide to use any of this yourself, it could help to have a way of marking the locations, so I've put together a quick set of 16 rather graphic counters to this end; just print to thin card and cut along the divisions. They're all yours to modify and print as you wish and I dedicate them to Colonel Kane and all the other guys at Tales.