Inspired by the Mothership sci-fi horror rpg, I have been thinking about how it might play in a more heroic tone for a science-fantasy game. While it is a d100 system, its quite different from the BRP engine, in that Stats are more important than skills. A skill is a bonus of 10-20% added to a Stat. Key to the arrangement of mechanics in Mothership, is that failed Stat and Save rolls give your character stress, and critical failures (a double roll above the Stat/Skill level, e.g. a 99) trigger rolls on the Panic table, which is full of dangerous complications.
When your typical chance of success on a roll is around 20-50%, players are encouraged to avoid making rolls by interacting with the fiction in a slow but steady way – which works fine until you get jumped by monsters. Stress is used for experience, as you reduce stress gained in adventures, you turn that into improved Stats, Saves, and Skills. So for those who take great risks and survive, there are also good rewards.
Stats
For this hack, I think five Stats are needed:
Speed (SPD): use this for tests involving perception, initiative, movement, and quick reactions.
Strength (STR): use this for tests involving brute force, endurance, ignorance, and intimidation.
Intellect (INT): is used for most skill tests in stressful circumstances unless another Stat is more compelling in the situation.
Psionic (PSI):used for tests involving psionic talents or “sufficiently advanced” technology. In a fantasy game I would call it Power (POW).
Warrior (WAR): used for combat tests and warfare (yes it could have been COM for combat, but COM makes me think of Comeliness in the old AD&D Unearthed Arcane. CON for conflict would also work, but is close to Constitution, perhaps BAT for battle as an alternative?).
For a non-horror game, I think the Stats should be higher than in Mothership, so I would let players assign Stat values of 20, 30, 40, 50, and 60. Mothership has Stats cap out at 85, so with the customisation options below, you do not want starting Stats higher than 60.
Saves
Mothership is not to different from BRP, except what might be Endurance and Dodge are merged into Body. Keeping with just three saves:
Chaos: used to resist mental harm from psionic (or magic) attacks, and to perceive true reality. In Mothership this is called Sanity.
Will: used to resist loss of control over your actions from situations involving fear, passion, and other emotion surges. In Mothership this is called Fear, but I think Will or Willpower covers a wider range of situations, especially if you want to insert Runequest or Mythras style passions for the PCs.
Body: used to resist physical harm, including from disease or invasive organisms. Could also be called Thews if you want to lean into Sword & Sorcery genre.
Assign the scores of 20, 30, and 40 to Saves for a horror/pain level similar to Mothership, or fudge the numbers up 10 to 20 points for a more heroic tone.
Wounds, Mana, and Fate
Mothership uses both Wounds and Health for tracking physical harm, with each Wound having 10+1d10 Health, and most characters having two Wounds. Any time you lose enough Health to cross a Wound threshold, you roll on a Wound table for potentially painful complications.
For my hack, I want a bit more certainty around Health, so Health is determined by 10 + STR divided by 10 (round up) for each Wound point.
Mana is the pyschic or magical equivalent of Wounds, and Essence is the equivalent of Health. Unlike Health, you are burning Essence points to fuel any PSI talents that you are using.
When you burn a point of Mana off, you get complications like nose bleeds (minus Health), migraines (plus Stress), conditions that impose disadvantage on checks, or a permanent increase your minimum Stress score.
For my hack, Essence is equal to 10 + INT divided by 10 (round up) for each Mana point.
Fate is a heroic resource to keep PCs alive, and Luck is the equivalent of Health/Mana. You can spend Luck at any time to manipulate fortune before making a roll (e.g. spend a luck point for Advantage) or after a roll (spend luck points to nudge the die result).
When you tempt Fate, however, flip a coin. If it lands the way you call it, there is no effect. If not, you make a roll on the Doom chart of horrible fates for heroes. Perhaps you get cursed by the Gods, lose a few points off a Stat or Save, or have the GM draw a Major Arcana card from a tarot deck to interpret what happens next.
For my hack, Luck is equal to 10 + SPD divided by 10 (round up) for each Fate point.
Character Customisation
Keeping this really generic, although you could customise archetype packages for genre/setting. Each player can choose three of the options below for their character, but each option can only be selected once:
+5 to all Stats.
+20 to one Stat.
+10 to all Saves.
+25 to one Save.
+1 Wound.
+1 Mana.
+1 Fate.
Having specific trauma responses to stress and panic is a bit harder to make generic. I might cut them entirely for a heroic campaign, or build a unique one for each PC based on discussion with the player.
Skills
Not much to say here, as the skill list should be tailored to the genre and setting. Broad or apprentice level skills should be +10% to checks, defined or expert skills should be +15%, and specific or master skills should be +20%. Adding in some perks or stunts for Master skills is quite appropriate. Skills greater than 20% might make sense if you campaign is aiming for transhuman or demigod power levels.
So Militia Training is +10% to WAR checks, while Melee Weapons is +15%, and Long Spear is +20%. Perhaps your hero might acquire and learn to wield a Spear of Destiny at +25%.
For our science-fantasy game you might have Psionic Training at +10% to PSI checks, Telekinesis at +15% and Soul Blade at +20%. Perhaps you character learns alien secrets and learns to manifest the Dual Soul Blades at +25%.
Mythras or Call of Cthulhu have some good packages of skills, and while Mothership only hands out a few skills at the start, for a more heroic level of play I think you could give out more skills to starting PCs, e.g. two Master, two Expert, and four Trained skills.
Vices
I would be temped to take the list of Vices from Blades in the Dark and have players pick one for the PC to indulge in to reduce Stress in downtime actions.
An overview of the game economy and policy choices players will face in the Barracks Emperor megagame on 16 October 2021.
The first draft of the economic rules involved a lot of counting, and income tracks for all 40 odd major provinces. It also had a nice trade subgame. It was a bit complex, and simpler is always better, so the political economy of Barracks Emperor is now an abstract model rather than a simulation of the Roman economy.
There will be two economic currencies in the game: Resource Points (RPs), and Wealth Points (WPs). Factions use RPs. Characters use WPs. RPs can be converted into WPs, and vice versa. At the start of the game, 1 RP converts into 8 WPs, and 10 WPs convert into 1 RP. When inflation strikes in the game, the number of WP required to buy an RP increases, but the RP:WP conversion rate remains the same at 1:8.
Resource Points
RPs are an abstraction of all the resources available to a government to make and implement policy decisions. It includes taxes in coin or kind, bureaucrats and other officials, and the loyalty and obedience of the people it controls. Factions will have an income of approximately 10-15 RPs at the start of the game. There are three sources of RP income:
Fixed Income. This is normally 8-10 RPs per faction. Fixed income is difficult and slow to change.
Variable Income. This is a 1d4 roll (1d6 for the faction that controls Egypt). Control can grant advantage/disadvantage on this roll to reflect the current state of the game. For example, if most of your provinces have pillage markers in them, you might roll with disadvantage (roll 2d4 and keep the lowest die).
Mint coins. Roman factions can debase their currency. This generates 1d4 RP for the Romans and +1 RP for other factions in that region, but may trigger inflation.
RPs have three main uses:
Paying faction expenses.
Paying to action policy options.
Paying for military operations by the faction.
RPs cannot be transferred between factions, unless a policy option specifically allows it. There is a workaround, in that you can convert your RP into WP, hand them over to a character in the target faction, and then they can convert the WP back into RP.
Faction Expenses
This covers the costs of paying troops, maintaining public infrastructure, and for the imperial household – keeping the people of Rome happy with bread and circuses. If you choose not to pay your faction expenses:
Use Logistics to move tokens.
Recruit tokens by any means.
Control may adjudicate other affects as make narrative sense, e.g. conspiracy actions may be easier if targeted at a faction unable to pay its supporters.
Policy Options
Each faction has its own deck of 12 Policy Option cards. Each game round, Control deals five of these cards, placing the cards on a track of slots numbered from 1 to 5. The number is the RP cost to adopt and implement that policy option in the game. Some actions also benefit from having more RPs spent. The faction leader decides which options are chosen – but smart leaders will consult with their subordinates. The faction leader has two special powers to manipulate policies:
The leader can call for a “mulligan”, and discard all five cards. Control will then draw four replacement cards, placing them in the slots numbered from 2 to 5.
The leader can swap the slot locations of two cards.
Most factions have a mix of policies around recruitment, governance, and faction improvement. During the game the mix of policies may change, e.g. reforms by the Emperor may add or take away powers from provincial governors.
The cost to action all five policy option cards would be 15 RPs. This is unlikely for most factions, as they have expenses and operations to pay for, so trade-offs must be made.
Military Operations
All factions have a Logistics rating that is the number of free token moves each general in that faction has for operations each game round. At the start of the game, most factions have a Logistics rating of three, or zero for the European barbarians. Logistics ratings are reduced for famines and plagues, but can be improved through policy options.
In addition to free moves from logistics, each RP committed by a faction leader to operations allows each subordinate general to move one token. For example, if your faction had a Logistics rating of 3, and their leader spent 5 RPs on operations, then each General could move up to eight tokens. If the faction has three generals, they could move a total of 24 tokens (which would be pretty much all the Legions in one region for a Roman faction).
Wealth Points
Wealth Points (WPs) represent coins, and other forms of portable wealth. For individual players, the WP they have at the end of the game can be considered a scoring metric (as can owning land for Senators). Players can exchange these freely with each other.
Most Romans characters have an income each game round of 1-3 WPs. This abstraction probably overpays Equestrian characters and underpays Senators. The Emperor is a source of patronage to increase salaries for Roman characters. Barbarian WP income depends a lot on how many Roman provinces they can pillage in a game round. Romans can also bid to purchase large agricultural estates (latifunda) that generate WP income.
If the Emperor executes a Roman character, they confiscate all of their WPs and latifunda. In all other cases of mortality your WP are kept for your next character.
If there is a trade subgame, it will generate WP for players, not RPs. Bank loans and mortgages on latifunda, and all interest payments, are also in WP, not RP. The Roman government cannot borrow WP from the banking system – its just not a thing they did.
Imperial Patronage
The Emperor has a few things they can do for free each turn:
they can appoint a Senator as Consul, this promotes the Senator’s political die
they can honour a successful military commander, this promotes the general’s political die
they can give any Roman a salary promotion, boosting their WP income
a number of jobs in the imperial faction are appointed at will by the Emperor, such as the commander of the Praetorian Guard
the Emperor can change Roman assignments, e.g. moving an aristocrat from a military command to the Senate and vice versa, or sending an Equestrian commander to a different front.
Splinter Empires
Part of the imperial household RP income derives from imperial estates owned by the Emperor all over the empire. This has built up over the centuries through confiscations and investments. If a region in the empire breaks away from central rule from the Emperor in Rome, faction RPs will be adjusted.
Splinter Empires will also get some new policy option cards, reflecting the benefits of decentralisation and a focus on regional defence. Splinter Empires can also attempt to implement imperial reforms in their region (see below).
Imperial Policy Reform
There is no science or technology subgame in Barracks Emperor, and any special actions attempting to introduce ahistorical technologies (including Greek Fire) will fail. What the Emperor has instead, is a series of reform options grounded in the history of the period, and each turn an Emperor can choose to action one reform. The frontier of plausible possibilities for these reforms are those undertaken by Emperor Diocletian (reined 284-305 CE). I will not go into the specifics, but the general broad categories of reform include:
restoring power to the Senate
reform of provincial government
religious innovation towards imperial theocracy
economic reforms, such as remonetization
military reforms, such as increasing the strength of the cavalry
increased centralisation of government – potentially increasing the number of players in the imperial bureaucracy and the number of reform actions allowed by the Emperor
increased decentralisation of government, such as devolving power and authority to regional capitals.
Many reforms have a cost in Imperial Unity to implement.
Imperial Unity
This works a like the Terror Track in Watch the Skies, and tracks popular support for the Roman Empire on a 0 to 250 scale, starting at 200. If it hits zero, the Roman Empire collapses. When it passes through a 50 point threshold, the Legions check for mutiny (there will be an automatic mutiny check in the first game round). Imperial Unity affects the number of free token recruitment each Roman region gets each turn. Volunteers dry up when Imperial Unity hits low levels – you can conscript soldiers, but that reduces your RP income and Imperial Unity.
Control will adjudicate the state of the Empire on each map each game round, and award either -1d4 to -5d4 Unity (depending on how calamitous the situation is) or +1d6 Unity (if the frontier is holding against the barbarians).
The following events will always affect the Imperial Unity score:
A new Emperor in Rome improves unity based on a roll of their Military/Political dice
If the Emperor does not adopt any reforms in a game round, their respect for tradition improves unity by a roll of their Political die
If the Emperor commands in battle and wins, they can celebrate a triumph in Rome, unity improves by a roll of their military die
If Rome is sacked, Imperial Unity is reduced by half (round down), and the maximum possible Imperial Unity score is reduced by 25.
As Imperial Unity is reduced, the cost to implement imperial policy reforms drops, and if Imperial Unity is at 1-50, reforms are free. Some reforms also act to reduce the maximum possible Imperial Unity, not just the current score.
If you think of the Imperial Unity score as “how many years does the Western Roman Empire survive after the end of the game?” then the historical Imperial Unity score in 285 CE was 191 Imperial Unity.
Marketing
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So I wrote a draft post about a dice pool based combat system I designed, and had playtested a few times. Then I reflected on my design goals, and discarded the draft post (and the dice pool combat system). I will explain why, then cover some historical sources that have influenced this game design, and then outline how the next iteration of the combat system will work.
All game design is an act of balancing the focus you put towards different, sometimes contradictory, design goals. No game can be all things to all people. A brief overview of my design goals for this megagame. First, this megagame needs to provide a model of ancient warfare, politics, and economy – and a model is an abstraction, not a simulation. Second, it needs to have space for player agency – the players need to be able to make meaningful decisions. Third, it needs to be capable of fast resolution – players need to be able to resolve battles, taxation, mutinies and other key game mechanics in one minute of time or less. Finally, the combat mechanic needs to provide feedback to the wider game system through things such as casualties, territory capture, or soft factors like faction prestige or leader reputation.
My main reason for abandoning the dice pool system was on speed of resolution grounds. With one die per legion, plus dice for auxiliary units, leaders, and discipline, each regional map had the potential to generate battles that might have involved as many as 12-20 dice being rolled for each side in a battle. Figuring out how many dice, and what size of die to use, was just taking a little too long. Its also the kind of iterative mental activity that burns a lot of energy over the 6+ hours a megagame runs, especially when players turn to Control to verify and validate their numbers, multiplying the number of brains being used in the task. Dice pool systems work best when the number of dice is around 3-8, easily fitting in one hand, and also being easy to sort or count. I was planning on a “Roll and Keep Best Two Dice” system, but even with that I was feeling it would just take a little too long.
A second reason was thinking about the level and focus of the game. Barracks Emperor is set more at a strategic political-military level, with three year game turns, rather than at the operational or tactical levels for which month or week long turns would be more appropriate (along with much more detailed maps). So rather than a detailed battle system that tries to reflect scouting, flanks, reserves, etc, the game just needs something that quickly lets the players get back to politics and diplomacy. So this meant thinking about using a mix of techniques for speeding up mechanical resolution:
Using deterministic mechanics rather than stochastic (random) mechanics
Simultaneous resolution
Able to be resolved with absent players
Removing extraneous steps in the process
Burying as much detail as possible about the game engine “under the hood” of the player facing game components.
Sources
A few more books and articles to add to those mentioned in my last post.
Dan Taylor, Roman Empire a War: A Compendium of Battles from 31 BC to AD 565, Pen & Sword Books Ltd, 2016
David J. Breeze, The Frontiers of the Roman Empire, Pen & Sword Books Ltd, 2011
Mark Hebblewhite, The Emperor and the Army in the Later Roman Empire, AD 235-395
Frontinius, Stratagems, translated by Charles E Bennet, Loeb Classical Library, 1997
Vegetius, Epitome of Military Science, translated by N P Milner, second revised edition, Liverpool University Press, 2001
Phillip Sabin, The Face of Roman Battle, ..Journal of Roman Studies, 11/2000 volume 90, 1-17.
Lukas de Blois, The Crisis of the Third Century A.D. in the Roman Empire: A Modern Myth?
Peter Temin, The Roman Market Economy, Princeton University Press, 2013
Sitting at the back of my mind is also Edward Luttwak’s Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire, which I read in the 1990s but which I have not reread more recently. I understand serious classicists have issues with the text, but for me the key lesson was that border defences change over time.
A Time of Change
Because most of the visual media that we see about the Roman Empire is based on the late Republic and early Empire period we instinctively think of Roman soldiers with segmented armour, and large rectangular shields. The third century is a period of transition in Roman arms and armour, and renewed experimentation in tactics and force structure.
Legio III Cyrenaica of New England (United States) in a 1st century A.D. portrayal of a legion. From Wikipedia CC-BY-SA 3.0
So what kind of changes are we looking at in the third century?
the primary sword changes from the short gladius to the longer spatha
the shield changes from the rectangular scutum to an oval design similar to what the auxiliary forces had long used
a shift from the lorica segmentata (see picture above) to maille armour (see picture below)
increasing numbers of heavily armed cavalry, such as the cataphracti, especially as a large reserve force under the direct control of the Emperor or a trusted subordinate
the arms and armour of the Germanic tribes approaches equivalence with the Romans, as does tactical knowledge through barbarians serving in the Roman army
the full strength of the ten cohort legions (up to 6,500 troops) proving too slow in the face of raids by small warbands, leading to the creation of smaller fast moving vexillations (detachments) with only one or two cohorts plus supporting cavalry
at times, a deterioration in the legendary discipline of the roman forces, as exemplified by the large number of military revolts in this period
a decline in Italian volunteers serving in the legions, making the legions more provincial in focus (possibly abetted by the Severan dynasty allowing soldiers to marry, increasing ties to the community they were based in). My assessment is that while the number of barbarians in Roman service increased through this period, it was not a significant change at this time, unlike how events played out in the 5th century.
quality and quantity of recruiting also affected by wider economic problems and the deaths from plague and other calamities
an increase in the use of artillery engines (possibly a reaction to manpower shortages)
Roman cities were largely unwalled at the start of the 3rd century, and mostly walled by the end, as the emphasis for defensive strategy shifted from strong forward defence along the limes (borders) to more of a defence in depth strategy (supported by the decentralised government of the Tetrarchy, with four regional military commanders)
a shift away from amateur aristocratic command by senators, and command being placed in the hands of long service military professionals in the equestrian class.
Most of these factors do not need to be simulated in the game at the level of individual battles. Instead they will be policy decisions that the Romans can implement to try and increase their overall effective strength.
The classic Roman battle is a heavy infantry fight, with support from other arms such as cavalry, skirmishers, and artillery. Among its salient characteristics are:
Formations generally remained intact in close order until morale failed – none of those swirling Hollywood melees where one person fights another single person at a time.
Fighting with steel weapons in close proximity to the enemy (as opposed to longer distance archery) is a psychologically stressful state, and breaks and lulls in the fighting would be common (which reflects my own experience with re-enactment battles).
Roman generals largely did not do front line heroics (rare exceptions, such as Emperor Julian the Apostate, tend to demonstrate why this was the case) – this not a game of Warhammer with Champions that can overpower formations. Lower level leaders, such as the Centurions, did lead from the front, and often suffered high losses as a result.
Battles often took hours to resolve, before one side broke and ran.
The victor tended to lose around five percent of their force, while the loser would normally suffer 10-15 percent losses and could suffer heavy losses of 50-100 percent if encircled or pursued by cavalry. This is different from gunpowder battles, where both sides could take heavy casualties before one side retreated or collapsed.
A disciplined, high morale army with good leaders, could fight and defeat forces that outnumbered them by 4:1 or more (the 3:1 ratio you see in old wargames is not really a good rule of thumb for combat mechanics).
The Romans always considered the Persians, who had a lot of cavalry in their armies (including some elephants), to be their greatest enemy, but in the third century the assured dominance that Rome had usually enjoyed over the Germanic barbarians was fading. Between around 235 and 285, about one battle in ten was a catastrophic defeat, in which the bulk of the Roman army present at the battle, and most of the Roman leaders, were killed or captured. The key thing for the game is that almost every faction in the game is capable of beating every other faction on a good day. I have not found any good details on the strength of the Sassanid armies, so they will get a number of tokens that is close to Roman strength (and will get better if they repeat the historic feat of taking control of Armenia).
Map
The map will mainly feature Roman provinces as the main unit of geography, with a few special locations on the borders.
Large forces will be kept in containers off one side of the map, and represented by miniatures for leaders or standards for other formations. I will be using 28mm models from Aventine Miniatures.
Movement
The number of players needing to act at each map table will vary based on the number of player signups. It could be as few as three, it could be as many as nine. The number of teams needing to act should not be more than four. Within the constraint of 20 minute game turns, this gives me enough of a time budget to allow each team to move sequentially, rather than simultaneously. The three year timescale means a double blind system (i.e. hidden movement) is inappropriate. The key movement mechanics I have in mind are:
Teams move in prestige order, from lowest to highest prestige.
Each team will have one minute at the map table to move its game tokens.
Each team can initiate a maximum of five invasions of regions containing enemy pieces.
Mountain and Desert regions cost “two invasions” to enter.
To invade deeper into enemy territory, you need to mask the forces in the border province by leaving behind more tokens than than the defender has in their border province.
Combat
The tricky bit in the mechanics is not so much the process for determining victory, as in determining the consequences. One of my decisions has been to try and model the one in ten catastrophe. Because the battles are abstract, the players do not have a high degree of agency over the outcomes, and I do not want players feeling they have been reduced to impotence by one die roll. The key combat mechanics I have in mind are:
Teams resolve battles in prestige order from highest to lowest (this is the reverse of the movement order)
Each team has one minute to initiate and resolve battles.
If no one finds time to resolve a battle, the forces involved do not fight that turn.
Each side rolls three dice: a leader die, a discipline die, and a decisive unit die (the decisive unit is determined by a card draw, and a quick comparison). High score wins. High prestige wins ties.
The winner converts one large combat token into a small combat token. The large token is placed in the Reserve Pool.
The defeated side removed half of their small combat tokens, and converts all of their large tokens into small tokens. One of the large tokens is placed in the Dead Pool, the rest are placed in the Reserve Pool.
If you retreat through provinces containing enemy tokens, you will lose additional tokens to the Dead Pool.
Having all your large tokens removed in one battle sounds pretty dramatic, but read on.
The Decisive card specifies a unit type, such as Infantry, Cavalry, Skirmishers, Fleets, or Forts. Depending on relative unit strength, each side will get to roll a d4, d6, d8, d10, or d12. The masking and retreat rules are there to ensure that any player trying to raid deep into enemy territory is carrying a logistic penalty and bearing an appropriate level of risk. The movement-combat initiative also makes your deep raids more risky when you move first.
Feedback into the Wider Game
Combat tokens placed in the Dead Pool are permanently removed from your force pool. Some policy options can bring them back, but are expensive.
Combat tokens placed in the Reserve Pool return to play. The rate at which they return to play depends on other factors (Imperial Unity for the Romans, Prestige for the Sassanids). For example, if Imperial Unity is between 201 and 250, 1 in 2 Roman tokens in the Reserve Pool return to play at the start of the game turn. If Imperial Unity is between 151 and 200, only 1 in 3 Roman tokens in the Reserve Pool return to play at the start of the game turn. There will be a policy option that can increase the rate of reserve token return, but once again it will be expensive.
So while you can knock a side down, and take their tokens off the map, you cannot keep a side down for ever. In 2-3 turns they will be back in force.
The winner of a battle gets a Fort token in the region, the loser of a battle will lose a Fort. This represents shifting control and influence among the local inhabitants, as well as the occupation of key fortresses. The winning side gets +1 prestige (the defeated side does not lose prestige, as all factions shift one step towards zero prestige at the start of each game turn).
Defeated leaders make a mortality check, if they fail they die and the player gets a new character. Victorious leaders roll to see if they are promoted or gain honours (improving the Military or Political die one step, e.g. from d6 to d8).
The winner can choose to loot, gaining wealth, and placing a plunder token in the region. Plundering reduces faction RP income.
Still Needs Playtesting
I will be doing a playtest of this system on 7 August, focused on the frontier regions between Rome and Persia. For the playtest I will represent a legion with three large 16mm wooden cubes, while smaller detachments will be 10mm wooden cubes. Cavalry forces will use discs. Things I will be looking at closely in the playtest:
How do the players respond to prestige based movement-combat initiative system
Do the rewards from battles (promotion/prestige) balance the risks (loss of military strength, territory control)
Can battles be resolved in under a minute?
Do players concentrate their forces (to win one big battle), or disperse them (to spread risk across several encounters)
Does the ebb and flow of relative advantage look anything like the historical back and forth?
How does the three way dynamic between Rome, Persia, and Palmyra work out?
My next Megagame on 16 October 2021 is a historical scenario based on the Crisis of the Third Century (tickets on sale at Lil Regie). This is a period lying between the end of the Severan dynasty around 235 CE, and the start of Diocletian’s reign and the creation of the Tetrarchy around 285 CE. In the 50 years in between there were around 26 Emperors, major barbarian raids into Gaul, Italy, and the Balkan provinces, splinter empires in Gaul and the Orient, plague, droughts, floods, inflation, a decline in free trade, a banking collapse, and several major battles with the Sasannid Empire. The survival of the Roman Empire was not a sure thing, and the actions of a few key Emperors, such as Aurelian, were essential to restoring the situation of the Roman Empire. In this post I will write a bit about the sources I have used, and the key issues that I am trying to include in the game design.
Sources
The primary sources for this period are bad, and I am not the level of classical scholar to try and parse out the gaps and details myself. Key events often cannot be reliable located in time or space. Some short-lived usurpers are only attested to in a single literary source, and by one or two coins. In the eastern provinces, only by studying Sasannid sources can you start putting together an account of both Roman victories and defeats in battles. In the Christian sources, Emperors who persecuted Christians are generally portrayed as very bad people, while Emperors who stopped persecutions get a better presentation. The paucity of reliable historical narratives helps explain why a lot of modern Roman Empire media focuses on the late Republic and Early Empire, for which there are more reliable source materials, or just go straight to fiction with a sprinkling of historic names (e.g. the movie Gladiator).
My main secondary sources for the period have been:
David S. Potter, The Roman Empire at Bay AD 180-395, Second Edition, 2014.
John F White, The Roman Emperor Aurelian: Restorer of the World, New revised Edition, 2020.
Kyle Harper, The Fate of Rome: Climate, Disease, & the End of an Empire, 2017.
Nathanael J. Andrade, Zenobia: Shooting Star of Palmyra, 2018.
Beate Dignis and Engelbert Winter, Rome and Persia in Late Antiquity: Neighbours and Rivals, 2010.
Jonathon P. Roth, The Logistics of the Roman Army at War (264 B.C – 235 A.D.), 1999.
My thanks to Dr Hamish Cameron for loaning me the books on Zenobia and Rome & Persia. I did look for modern boardgames on this period, but they were generally unsatisfactory. Most are either too simple (e.g. lots of Euro games), or too focused on individual tactical encounters. Two games that did merit considered study were:
Imperium RomanunII is an old style hex and counter game, and has the usual problems with strong mechanical incentives to create a single uberstack of units to resolve the situation in one decisive battle.
Barracks Emperor is a four player deck building game, which is just not a style of of game I like, and its premise that there were enduring factions trying to control the people who would become Emperor is just wrong.
More helpful was Philip Sabin’s Lost Battles: Reconstructing the Great Clashes of the Ancient World, 2013. While this is focused on earlier battles, many of Sabin’s thoughts on ancient battles echo my own ideas, and it is a good systematic attempt to provide a model for wargaming ancient battles.
Playtest map
Key Design Elements
The overall objective is to design a megagame playable as a one day event for 20-50 players. As a hobby game, it needs to provide entertainment to the players, as they play to find out if Rome survives the crisis period, and if it does survive, how do the institutions of Rome adapt and change?
First, I made the decision to skip the period from 235-248. While there are some major periods of upheaval, it was still relatively quiet compared to the early 250s, when the plague hit, major barbarian raids occurred in Gaul and the Balkans, and the Sasanids conquered Armenia and defeated the Roman armies in the East. I then chose the start of Diocletian’s reign in 284 as the end point. As a megagame can process a game turn in 20-30 minutes, getting in a dozen game turns in a day, this suggests a timescale of three years to the game turn. This makes each game turn a bit abstract – its the exciting bits of those years, not the dull bits. It also lines up with what seems to be the median reign duration for an Emperor.
Second, the order of battle. While we know roughly how many legions and fleets Rome had in the early 3rd century and their usual deployment locations, there is little detail on what happened to them in the crisis. Roman sources are silent on their defeats in the east, and vague about who fought on what side in the various civil wars. So my decision is to make the 35 odd Legions the main Roman combat units, with about the same number of counters to represent the Auxiliary units (of which there were 100s, too many to model in a megagame). Our knowledge of Sasanid and Palmyrean strength is even more debatable, but from a game design point I can go with “strong enough to beat the Romans on a good day.”
Third, player roles. These are split between the following groups:
The Emperor and their household – the imperial household was a major landowner throughout the empire, a natural result of confiscating estates from executed traitors over the centuries. A key factor in the crisis, is that there is no fixed succession mechanism for appointing new Emperors, and since 69 CE, it was pretty clear that only people with armies got to vote on the matter.
Senators – wealthy aristocrats with a small role in the government of the empire, and a tradition of commanding most of the legions. It is during this period, that the Senate loses the last of its influence, as the Emperor gains more power and the Equestrians gain a greater role in government. But history is a series of contingent events, and maybe in the game it will not work out that way. A Senator can expect to rotate between assignments in command of legions, and being in Rome. A trusted senator might be appointed as Dux – a regional commander for one of the game maps.
Equestrians – the knights of Rome, not as rich as Senators (usually) but more likely to have achieved their positions by merit. Equestrians control several key positions, especially the Governor of Egypt, and the commander of the Praetorian Guard. During this period more long term career soldiers gained promotion into the Equestrian class, and into a career in government.
Palmyra. This trading city is a Roman client state with a mixture of Arabic, Greek, and Roman culture. In this period it exploited Roman defeats in the Orient to form a splinter empire, which at its apex controlled the provinces from Egypt up into Anatolia. Queen Zenobia is also one of the few women to have played a significant role in the events of the period (there is frustratingly little about the various wives of the legion generals and the Emperors).
Sasannids. A new dynasty in what is now Iran, replacing the Parthian dynasty, but keeping the terrifyingly dangerous armies of heavy cavalry. Rome’s only diplomatic equal in the world, they defeated several Roman armies and raided many of the provinces in the Orient.
Other Barbarians. If player numbers permit, there will be roles as Gothic or Frankish tribal leaders, and possibly as the King of Armenia.
Rhetoricians. if player numbers permit, there will be roles dedicated to making speeches that summarise the game action. Many of these roles will have a religious element (Christianity, Zoroastrianism, Pagan cults, etc).
Fourth, factions. While the Sassanids and Palmyreans are cohesive teams, the Roman Empire lacks big factions in this period. The Roman Emperor was simply too powerful for alternative centres of power to persist. Factions tended to emerge spontaneously between groups of Senators or generals who were in close proximity when a mutiny happened or an Emperor died. So faction formation is a task for players in the game, not the pre-game briefings.
Fifth, the maps. The map regions are fairly straight foward. One map for Gaul, Britannia, and Hispania. One map for Italia and Rome. One map for the Danube river and Balkan region. One map for the Orient, from Anatolia in the North, to Alexandria in the South, and east out to Ctesiphon, the Sasannid capital. Africa was a relative backwater in the time period of focus, and so only needs a map if we have a lot of players. The main unit of territory is the province – given the strength of Roman logistics and the three year time for a turn, you can move almost anywhere on the map if you need to. So no need to count movement points.
Sixth, the economy. One of the triggers of the crisis period was a perfect storm of financial problems for the Roman Empire. Climate change and plague reduced income, while the Several dynasty had increased the pay for the Army (which consumed about 75% of state income). The Emperors also had to cover most of the cost of the bread and circuses that kept Rome happy, and finding largess to reward friends, and cash donatives to keep the army on side with bonus payments. From my reading, I am not convinced that inflation was a major problem until about 270. While the currency was being debased, people retained confidence in it for a good long time. In the game, a major problem facing all Roman players is that income is less than expenditure, and if you do not pay the legions, they can mutiny and start a civil war. To keep the accounting simple, each regional team will make strategic choices based on a Resource Point (RP) economy, with about a dozen RP a turn to spend. Individual players will have Wealth Points (WP), which can be converted into RP (if you go heavily into debt you can maybe supply a legion for a game turn), but WP mainly exist as a player objective for scoring how well they are doing relative to other players.
Seventh, major policy and reform options. While the Romans fought hard, they found the traditional Roman heavy infantry legion inadequate to the task of defeating the Sasanids or the northern barbarians. During the crisis period and into Diocletian’s reign, a lot of things were tried or experimented with, such as increasing the strength of the cavalry. Some ideas worked, some ideas failed. As much as possible, it will be a player choice to make or not make these changes to the Empire. Change too much, too fast, and imperial unity will suffer. Change too little, and the barbarians might sack Rome. I assess the tetrarchy reforms as being the limit of what the Empire could bear at this time – no converting to Christianity just yet.
Each of the frontier map regions (Gaul, Balkans, Orient) is an operational wargame, while Italy and Rome are mainly political games (lots of players talking with each other). Rome is under stress from the pressure on its frontiers, but the major crises really occur when the border defences are stripped in order to fight civil wars over who should be Emperor and whether or not the legions get their backpay.
The key decisions that players make:
If my legion revolts, do I try and crush the mutiny (my troops might murder me) or become an usurper (the other players might murder me)?
If there is an Usurper in my region, do I support them and march on Rome, or do I try and crush their revolt? If we march on Rome, how many legions stay behind to defend against the barbarians?
As a Barbarian, when, where, and how hard do I attack the Romans? Do I accept Roman bribes to hold off an attacking, or to support a civil war faction? Can I get to Rome and sack it?
As Emperor, which Senator do I send out to take command of Legions or to act as a regional Dux? Can I trust my equestrians to remain loyal? Can I bribe people to stay loyal? Do I lead Roman armies in person or delegate the risk to another commander?
As a Senator, do I support the Emperor, or conspire to replace them with a better general/politician?
As Dux, I can’t afford to pay for everything, so who do I choose not to pay – the legions, the navy, or the civic government?
As Dux/Senate/Emperor, which policy option/reform do I choose this turn?
As a Legion commander, how do I defend most cost effectively against barbarians? All out defence will wear the legions down – do I try and get lucky with smaller units?
As a regional team – do we stay loyal to Rome, or do we declare independence and form a splinter empire?
That is all for now, I will try and do future blog posts covering some of the mechanics in finer detail.
Romance of the Seven Worlds (ROM7) was a megagame run at Wellycon XIV on Saturday 5 June 2021. It had 27 players, four control, and ran from about 10.30am to 4.30pm with a half lunch break. In this post, I will cover the feedback from players and control after the game, and my own observations of what worked well.
During the game Earth was saved as gravity generators were destroyed. This then set up the seven worlds to crash into each other, which was stopped by a magic ritual (with a tech project as backup). The Emperor had died, but come back to life through a clone, but with the High priest ascending to be one with Dyzan, it was going to be hard for the Emperor to complete their ritual of renewal for continued immortality. The destruction of Fangoria was going to make life hard for all the Zing addicts, as the drug was only cultivated on Fangoria.
Player Enjoyment
The median score was 4.6 out of 5, a small improvement on our last megagame The Colossus of Atlantis in June 2019. This is a good result, and that while a bit chaotic, nearly everyone had a good time and all but one player was interested in returning for future megagames.
Rules and Briefings
Everyone read the rules before the game (or at least part of the rules) and the rules got a 4 out of 5 for how well they prepared people for the game. This was a small improvement from 2019. Written feedback on the rules included a comment that it needed another draft, and someone also suggested video tutorials. I have long wanted to do video tutorials, but they require time and technology. The key obstacle is having the rules finished with enough lead time to make and distribute the video. The main block to finishing the rules early is player registrations for the game – if the number of players is not quite what the various subgames require, then the rules need to be amended. For ROM7 I locked the rules a week beforehand, having had to merge parts of the intended Minister and Noble subgames together.
Game Difficulty
The median answer here was 3.3, close to the Goldilocks sweet spot of 3. Our last game in 2019 got a 3.2 rating.
Rate of Play
The median answer here was 3.4, but the answers were not as tightly grouped for the Difficulty question. Our last game in 2019 got a 3.3 rating. As one person on the Control team put it, we got through ten turns of action in five game turns. Several players wrote comments about wanting better time keeping, and an easy to access board with turn number, current game phase, and time remaining in the turn. This may require some tech investment, or looking at ways of projecting the game time information. It is something we have done better in the past, but did not do well this time.
Player Involvement
The median answer was 4, most of the players felt pretty involved in the game. Our last game got a 4.1 rating. In written feedback, one player felt they did not have enough reasons to leave their world and interact with other players, while another was happy not to be involved with everything. Some feedback from the nobles that they found it hard to find the time to participate in the ministerial subgame.
Control
The median answer for how well the Control team did was 4.7, a small improvement on 2019 (4.6). Dutton, John, and Scott all did a great job, but the game would have run more effectively with six Control rather than four. About a third of the survey responders were willing to take on the Control role in the future, so hopefully a few hands will be raised when I ask for volunteers for Barracks Emperor in October.
Value for Money
This got a high 4.8 rating, a solid improvement on the 4.5 in 2019. In the ticket price survey, the median value for a day game was $NZ 30.40, and for a half-day game $NZ 15.80.
Venue
This is the fourth time we have run a megagame at Wellycon. For the previous three games we had a more discrete space to ourselves. Wellycon has grown, with 1100 people attending this year. So this year we got allocated some space on the stage, with instructions “take what you need, but no more.” The Control team is very aware that it was cramped, loud, and had non-players wandering through taking a short cut to the Dungeons & Dragons basement. It made the propaganda/media phase hard.
If that is the space we have available next year, then I think the better option will be to just run a demo table, with signups for a game later in June or July. Shifting to a weekend that is not a holiday weekend will also increase options for interested players who had other options for fun that weekend (such as a LARP convention out in Wainioumata, an SCA event up in Carterton, and all the hundreds of boardgames being played at Wellycon). The local community hall in Newlands where I live can be rented for about $200 for the day, and has power points, a kitchen, parking, and a supermarket two minutes walk away.
Communication and Marketing
It is pretty clear that Facebook, word of mouth from friends, and people signed up to our mailing list are the main ways we get people signing up for megagames. A couple of people found us through the Wellycon website, but the store posters did not pick up anyone this time as far as I can tell. A note on casting, while the Emperor role was cast almost instantly, we struggled to find players for the heroic Earthling or imperial minister roles – the Guild, Noble, and Common roles all proved more interesting.
Design Goals and Mechanics
I set out to design a game inspired by Flash Gordon, and I described it as a bit of a “reverse Watch the Skies“, where meddling Earthlings infiltrate and subvert an alien empire. My research consisted of watching the 1980 movie, the 1930s film serials (on Amazon prime), and reading reprints of the Sunday Comic strips from the 1930s and 40s. Compared to modern imitations like Star Wars, there is remarkably little in the way of academic or fan analysis on these works. In reflecting on past designs I wanted to make economic growth hard, and to have strong non-military solutions for problems. The game had mechanics for:
Movement
Exploration
Combat
Economy
Science
Magic
Imperial government and petitions
Romance
Loyalty
Pulp Actions
So there was a lot in the game, and it mostly worked and meshed well together.
Movement: I tried to keep this simple, you could move a character anywhere, but moving rockets or armies cost fuel tokens. Movement direct to the imperial capital faced barriers from “orbital defences” and “force fields”.
Exploration: various secrets and treasures were hidden in imperial vaults, which could be found by exploring the wilderness maps. I think this worked well, but given the time pressures on the game turn, I did not need the “you are lost for a minute” cards.
Combat: this worked well for 1:1 battles, but stumbled when scaled up to battles involving a dozen players. The attempted attack on the imperial palace (see picture below) took way to long to resolve. The lasercut MDF tokens and various strength cubes were great, and I will be using them again. We were close to maxing out on counters by the end of the game (started with about 15 rockets and 13 armies in play, but had 30 counters for each available) so I think I could have dialed combat losses up a notch.
Economy: Most players had a base that had four actions they could do two times each turn (example pictured below), if they had the Radium Points (RPs). Gaining RPs, however, required fighting for them in the Radlands of Targol, or acquiring them in trade. The two Pirate players did well in these battles, gaining large amounts of RPs, then hoarding them as per their objectives. So the trickle down economy did not work. Still, the economy did not fall over – everyone had some free actions they could do – but I probably needed to have a player role dedicated to crushing the pirates.
Science and Magic: On the whole players managed to work down the tech trees to get to the advances they needed to solve various problems in time. The pollution aspect of economic advances did not come through well. I am personally a bit tired of science subgames and tech trees, but I felt I really needed Science in the game, given the role of Dr Zharkov in the original sources of inspiration. Designing a lot of useful science advances is a high effort/high risk part of design – it takes time to do right, and if you get it wrong you can break the game. I am thinking that my design time would be better spent on designing interesting asymmetric powers for specific player roles that are present in game turn one, focusing on things that spur player conversation and trade.
The science process required each science role to calculate how many science dice that they had. These were then rolled for a project, trying to generate a set of dice with scores of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6. If you were short one die, you could take “Zing” a cognitive drug in the game, to adjust one die roll to a different number. Completed advances could be traded to another player by simply spending six dice.
Imperial Government: I think this needed a few more players to work, as it was a bit isolated form the rest of the game. No one, for example, used the power to grant permission to wage war, and the imperial government lacked a degree of menace. Perhaps in a future run there should be imperial generals actively deploying to the subject worlds to hunt down rebels and outlaws. If I run the game again for less than 25 players, this is the subgame I would cut out.
Imperial Petitions: The three councils (noble, guild, and commons) met for five minutes each turn to adopt a petition to the Emperor. The Emperor then chose one petition, which was implemented. This is a simple, but powerful mechanic, as could be seen with the petition that just said “Destroy Fangoria”, leading to a jungle world being deforested. Councils did crowd the game turn, but allowed me to give the Emperor great power in choosing which petition to grant, but not unlimited power. With more players (over 30) I would look at making this kind of subgame a full time diplomacy/political role.
Romance: this megagame had very weak factions at the start, the guild, noble, and common players on each world were intended to be “frenemies” rather than allies. The design intent was for the card draw and match romance mechanic to allow emergent factions to be created in play. This did not work well, and the Terran Charisma, a special action card the Earthlings each had which allowed one player to change a character objective each game turn, had a much more significant impact on the game. The mechanics remain sound, but require more time for the players to engage in them.
Loyalty: This was a very experimental mechanic, but it did work well. Each world had a bag of loyalty discs, initially a mix of imperial, noble, and guild tokens (three of each), and one outlaw token. Most players had actions that let them look at or change the discs. Loyalty linked to the economic and military games by determining the loyalty of strength cubes that the players built – which could be decisive in battle as one of the possible combat cards “Sway” determined the winner on a 2d6+Charisma+Loyal Strength Cubes (on both sides counters). Loyalty also linked to the success or failure of Pulp Actions (see below). Loyalty discs were also influenced by the Propaganda phase – Control would add a loyalty disc to each world bag based on who had the most effective speeches. Late in the game when Unobtanium bombs were used by rebels, imperial loyalty discs got added to all the world bags.
Pulp Actions: This was the creative special action/wizard wheeze for the game. They were constrained to actions suitable for small bands of plucky heroes or devious villains. In adjudication, Control would determine how many loyalty tokens you needed, and then randomly draw three world loyalty discs – reflecting the support of the little people on the world, the guard who deliberately looks away, the taxi driver who gets you away from the secret police, etc. This was part of my design intent – to emphasize politics and people over economic growth and military power. So when the rebels attempted to assassinate the Emperor, they needed to draw three white tokens from the world loyalty bag, while a player trying to escape quickly from a prison just needed to tie discs that favoured them, against discs of the captor’s loyalty. This mechanic worked well, but we needed more Control to have more bandwidth for player initiated pulp actions.
Note: when doing a pulp action to steal a rocket, please make sure you steal a fuel token first.
Components
A few experiments that worked well. First, I got a bunch of Neck Wallets to both display key character information at a glance, and to provide pockets for card and counter storage. One change needed here – spot colour to make role identification easier. The final character sheets were laminated, so if a player trained one of their traits, it could be quickly adjusted with a marker pen.
Second, inspired by the foam counters used in a UK space race megagame, I got Battle Kiwi to make some MDF laser cut counters that could fit 10mm wooden cubes without requiring hours and hours of precise cutting of foamboard. This allows a lot of rich information to be packed into a counter. The example below has strength cubes loyal to Nobles (blue), Guild (orange), the Emperor (black), the Outlaws (white), as well as a Tech cube (yellow), and a Shock cube (pink). These work really well, as long as no one slaps the table hard. Total cost for 63 unit counters and a similar number of control markers was $NZ 167. I definitely plan to do something similar for Barracks Emperor, with one of these counters for each legion, and each cube representing a cohort.
Finally, I went for very abstract maps. ROM7 is not a hex counting panzer pusher game. So I purchased some art from Michal Kváč on Artstation, made a few tweaks in GIMP, and had seven worlds ready for exploration. I did learn not to rely on goggle drive when emailing files to the printer I use, Dropbox is the preferred solution for sending a dozen things off to print at once.
Closing Thoughts
This was a densely packed game, incorporating 18 months worth of ideas. For the number of players, I could have cut a subgame and a mechanic or two, but on the day it all worked out thanks to the players and control getting stuck into the game and having fun. On the whole, I feel like a future run of this game needs tweaks and a polish, not a rewrite.
Unlike the boardgames that they resemble, megagames allow for improvised rules to be added to the game by player actions. These actions are adjudicated by the Control team, who try to balance novelty and delightful surprises with fairness to other players and the world environment of that particular megagame. For example, no amount of persuasion on the part of player would convince me that they can invent steam engines in ancient Rome, or machine guns in medieval Europe. Clear constraints on what is possible exist to encourage player creativity.
There are three broad options for handling improvised actions in Romance of the Seven Worlds. One is via the Open Science project, which allows characters with science training to try and discover a useful scientific advance. The second is via petitions to the Emperor in the Councils. The third, Pulp Actions, is the topic for this post.
In this megagame, Pulp Action is the term used to describe what are called Special Actions or a “wizard wheeze” in other megagames. A Pulp Action can be used to create a dramatic narrative effect on the game. All players will start the game with at least one Pulp Action card. The scope of the Pulp Action is chosen by the player initiating the Pulp Action, within the following constraints:
The Pulp Action must involve your character, plus any friends willing to assist;
The Pulp Action must be something could be carried out by a small group of people;
The Pulp Action takes place at a specific location;
The Pulp Action places your character at risk – you could be wounded or captured;
Pulp Actions cannot be used for assassination attempts.
You must make a short narrative description of the action in a pulp tone, and can suggest the mechanical effect. Control will adjudicate what happens, including giving any targets of the Pulp Action a chance to play their own Pulp Actions in response.
Pulp Action cards are one use, unless specified otherwise.
Gaining Additional Pulp Action Cards
Pulp Action cards can be gained from the Romance subgame. Control will award some Pulp Action cards to players based on which characters get the most spotlight time in the speeches made in the Propaganda Phase.
Control Adjudication of Pulp Actions
The adjudication of Pulp Actions is an art, not a science. Control may modify this procedure in play.
The primary method of determining the success or failure of Pulp Actions is by drawing three loyalty disc tokens from the bag for the world where the action is taking place. If the Pulp Action targets a character or asset controlled by other characters, then you need to draw more of your loyalty tokens than of theirs.
If you are attempting a Pulp Action against a similar player role (e.g Noble versus Noble), then the appropriate loyalty only works for the player on their home world and Control will adjudicate what other loyalty the player should be trying to draw.
If two opposed Pulp Actions are tied for success, then control will get players to roll dice to break the tie, adding Charisma, Dueling, Science, or Tactics scores as may be considered appropriate.
Loyalty TokensNeeded
Difficulty of the Pulp Action
0
Saving Throw: Escaping from a death trap, prison, or execution chamber, sneaking undetected into a guarded facility to scout, countering a Pulp Action that targets you.
1
Minor Effect: Replicating a normal action power, setting a trap to capture another player, setting up or searching for a secret base, securely hiding a secret, improving the guards defending a region, disrupting or delaying a science project.
2
Major Effect: doing a build action for free, setting a trap to wound other characters, strength hits to a combat unit, sabotaging a superweapon, stealing the results of a science project, theft of resource tokens, creating a new social event, or giving a propaganda speech.
3
Irreversible Effect or Impossible Action: Attempting to kill a character, destroy a region, imperial agency, or combat unit.
Example of a Pulp Action
A player proposes to sneak an explosive charge aboard the Emperor’s personal rocket, timed to explode when they next travel, so that the Emperor crash lands in the wilderness of a random world when they next move between world tables.
Control rules that this action must take place on the world where the Emperor currently is (in this case its Targol), and is a Minor Effect as it disrupts or delays the Emperor. The action is successful if one or more White (Hope) tokens are drawn – each Hope token maroons the Emperor incommunicado for one minute, but if more Black (fear) tokens are drawn than white tokens, then the action fails and the saboteur will be captured on Targol.
If the player had asked for the Emperor to be killed by this action, Control would refuse to allow it as being too close to an assassination attempt. They might allow it to wound the Emperor, but this would increase the number of white loyalty tokens to two.
As the economic game models a feudal past, so the science game imitates the retro futurism of the 1930s. In the empire, only the Guilds have much in the way science training and lab equipment – just enough to fulfill their charter duties. The number of real scientists in the empire can be counted on the fingers of one hand.
The general process for this minigame is that players acquire Science project cards, decide what project to research, acquire science dice (d6), and then roll science dice to progress the chosen project towards completion. Science actions can be undertaken only by characters that have a Science rating of +1 or more.
Science Project Cards
At the start of the game, the number of project cards will be quite limited. As some projects are completed, new project options will be unlocked. The following sources exist for Science project cards:
Source
Acquisition Method
Discovery
Completing some science projects will unlock new science projects.
Exploration
If you explore a world, you may discover a Science project.
Imperial Archives
The Librarian Guild can draw Science project cards as a build action.
Imperial Minister
Can potentially use a Ministry of Conscription action to acquire Science dice.
Terran Scientist
Can give anyone the Scientific Method project card.
Trade
Players are free to trade a Science project card to one other player once they have completed the project.
Some examples of Science Project cards (these are draft). Red text indicates a penalty or side effect that players need to remember. Most of the science projects involve pure science, warfare, economics, and superweapons.
Science Dice
Science dice can be kept in reserve, traded with other players, or used on researching science projects. You can acquire one science dice from the following sources:
Source
Number of Dice
Science Rating
One die per point of science rating your character has.
Science Projects
Some completed Science projects grant bonus science dice.
Imperial Minister
Government power use can create some science dice.
Science Action
The Science build actions can build sets of three science dice.
Science Conference
Any character with a science rating can grant you a bonus die by visiting your world and sitting down for a one-minute conversation about science.
Rolling the Science Dice
You can progress research on any, all, or none of your science projects. You can only roll science dice for each project once per World Phase. Each project card has six progress squares, numbered from 1-6. A die can only be placed in an empty square, with a number matching the number rolled on the dice. Extra dice with the same number are wasted research. Keep the project card and dice on your world table.
After rolling Science dice, you can spend a Zing token to either:
Reroll three science dice of your choice; or
Change the number rolled on one science die to a number of your choice.
Note: Your projects are public knowledge once you put a science die on them.
Completing Science Projects
When all six progress squares are filled, the project is completed. Inform Control of your accomplishment, and to get any unlocked project cards. Make notes on any bonuses you now have, and you can now trade the project card to another player for them to use.
Creating Your Own Science Project
Open projects can be found in the game, which allow you to create your own science project. You will need to discuss your ideas with Control. Anything that is too much of an “I Win” project without serious penalties or side effects will likely to be rejected. Creating a last minute invention to counter someone else’s super weapon is, however, very genre appropriate.
The key to understanding the economy in the Romance of the Seven Worlds megagame is to know that it is not a growth based economy. It tries to model a feudal system of power, not a capitalist system of power. The Emperor also has a highly developed sense of the aesthetic value of undeveloped wilderness, and polluting your home world with the toxic wastes of heavy industry is one of the ways the Emperor might be persuaded that your home world should be destroyed.
Income
No one in the game has a cash income that they get on a regular basis – even Imperial ministers have to compete for their budgets. This game’s equivalent of Resource Points (RPs) is the Radium Point – same RP abbreviation, sexy new glow in the dark colour. The vast majority of RPs available to the players are from mining on Targol (the imperial capital world). Anyone with a Rocket unit can fly to a region where the Control team spawn RPs, and if no one else wants to fight you for it, you collect the RPs. One region might have 50 RP, a second region 20 RPs, and a third region 5 RPs. Only the Noble and Guild players have Rockets at the start, so if the other players want RPs they will have to beg, borrow, or trade goods and services for them.
There is an opportunity cost to mining for RPs on Targol – if you only have one Rocket you cannot also use it to fight meteors in the same turn you are mining. Not defending your world is a bad thing.
It is quite possible that you will experience a cycle of good and bad income turns, where you fluctuate between plenty and starvation in terms of your ability to afford build actions. Its always good to have friends who can loan you a few RPs.
Economic Actions
Each of the three types of world role (Noble, Guild, Commons) has a different type of economic structure, called a Base, that has four different types of economic action available to them. Each Base is linked to a specific region on one of the maps ( a noble palace, guild hall, or common city). Lose control of that region and you lose most of your economic power. Below are three examples of Bases. Each action can normally be done twice a turn, but Widgets (a rare token) allow a third action to be done at the second action cost. The cost is in RPs – if the cost is 0, then it is a free action for you. Everyone should have at least one free action. If the cost is “T”, then the RP cost is equal to the game turn number.
Damage from meteors that hit worlds will increase the cost of actions, as can pollution, damage from combats, rebel sabotage, or pulp actions by other players.
Three examples follow – these are working drafts and not final.
Guild base example – a world that specialises in science.Commons base example – a world that specialises in warfare.Noble base example – a world that specialises in cognitive drugs useful in science and training.
Trade
Players can trade most game tokens – RPs, Widgets, Fuel, Zing, Science dice, and strength cubes. The different action costs mean that it may be cheaper for another player to do that action, and some players are more effective at some actions than others. The commons players, for example, are nearly always better at actions that influence world loyalty.
One of the functions of the economic system is to provide reasons for the players to talk with each other. Several key resources only exist on one world.
Terms, conditions, and enforcement of trade deals and loans is entirely in the hands of the players.
New Economic Bases
One possible outcome of an imperial petition in the Council phase is that the Emperor can grant permission to build a new economic base. Some science projects can also allow players to build new economic bases. If you can capture another player’s base, then you can use it – but of course before you can capture it in chivalric warfare, you need formal permission from an Imperial Minister. Some science projects might also change the cost or effectiveness of some economic actions.
Next blog post will probably be on the Science subgame.
The design intent for the combat mechanics in Romance of the Seven Worlds is to have a quick process that produces outcomes similar to the comics and movies. In particular, combat can lead to units changing sides, or duels between opposing commanders. It is expressly not intended to produce realistic combat outcomes, or to require much in the way of logistics beyond spending fuel to move places.
One of the key factors in the combat system is a desire to limit the number of combat units each player can control. Most players will start the game with no more than one or two combat units, and have a maximum of three to five units that they can command. By limiting the number of units each player controls, we can have each individual unit be rich in information about its capabilities.
Each cube counts as one strength point. Yellow cubes are tech cubes, and count as a strength point for tech battles, when all other cubes are worth zero strength. The other colours used for strength cubes determine the faction loyalty that group of people support:
Black: support the Emperor;
White: support the Rebels;
Blue: support the Nobles;
Orange: support the Guilds.
So the unit pictured above has a strength of seven in Attrition battles, three in Tech battles, and one to two in Sway battles. Note that loyalty cubes may also be important for Pulp Actions targeted at the unit. The above unit is more likely to be sabotaged by the Rebels than anyone else. In Tactics and Chance battles it has a strength of zero.
Meteor Guard
This is a player versus environment (PVE) combat mechanic. Each game turn Control will pawn a number of meteor swarms in up to five of the zones on the Space Map. Players who control Rocket units can then choose to intercept the meteors and try to destroy them. This costs a fuel token, and you can only intercept meteors in one space zone each game turn.
This is a simple process, where the player rolls 2d6, adds unit strength, and if this is equal or greater than that meteor’s fixed strength rating, then the meteor is destroyed. If the roll is equal or less, then the Rocket takes one hit, reducing its strength. You can keep trying to shoot a meteor down as long as you have time left left in the Warlord Phase, and strength left in your Rocket.
Any meteors not shot down strike the planet in their space zone, damaging bases and units there. This is a bad thing, and players should work together to stop this.
Battle Process
This is a player versus player (PVP) combat mechanic. The usual trigger is a player moving units to a region controlled by another player, and declaring an attack. If in doubt, Control will determine if a battle happens.
First, any of the players involved in the battle draws a battle card. There are seven types of battle card:
Cliffhanger: place a one minute sand timer down, when it runs out draw another battle card. If the Warlord Phase ends before the battle is resolved, then all the units involved in the battle are locked in combat until the next Warlord Phase (you could use a Pulp Action to escape the situation). For each Cliffhanger card draw, all players in the battle add 1d6 to the dice they roll.
Romance: place a one minute sand timer down, players involved in the battle may court each other using the Romance mechanic. Unexpected alliances and betrayals may occur. Otherwise treat as a Cliffhanger.
Attrition: roll 2d6 + Strength.
Chance: roll 2d6. Do not count strength cubes at all for battles resolved by chance.
Sway: roll 2d6 + Loyalty + character Charisma. You only count strength cubes that have loyalty matching your declared faction – this includes cubes on units controlled by other players!
Tactics: roll 2d6 + character Tactics.
Tech: roll 2d6 + Tech + character Science.
If for some reason you are unable to roll dice for your units, your side is assumed to roll a 2 when Control calls time at the end of the Warlord Phase. Character attributes only count if the character is present in the region where the battle is fought.
Astute players will have noted that outnumbering a player 10:1 matters not at all if a Chance battle occurs.
Duels
In battles, a tied result causes a duel to be fought between opposing commanders (duels may also take place in other parts of the game and use the process outlined here). Duels are 1:1 fights, no ganging up. At the start of the duel, each player announces the stakes they are fighting for:
Capture: win one duel round to capture your opponent and win the battle;
Wound: win two duel rounds to wound your opponent and win the battle;
Kill: win three duel rounds to kill your opponent and win the battle.
To resolve the duel, each player rolls 2d6 and adds their Dueling score. Dueling ties can be won by playing an Inspiration card. Otherwise keep rolling until one player achieves their stake. Note that while a “Death” outcome for a character can be negated with a Pulp Action, the battle will still be lost. If both duelists achieve their stakes in the same round of dice rolls, then both sides are assumed to have lost the battle for casualty purposes, and the defender retains control of the region being fought over.
Battle Outcome
The player with the highest score wins the battle. If there are multiple players on one side, their scores are not combined together – it is just the highest score that counts.
The winning player gains control of the region where the battle took place (unless it was already controlled by an ally).
Units lose strength cubes based on the type of battle card used to resolve the battle:
Cliffhanger: as below.
Romance: if peace broke out between the players, no strength cubes are lost.
Attrition: each of your units loses strength cubes equal to your foe’s highest die roll (max six cubes).
Chance: each of your units loses strength cubes equal to your foe’s lowest die roll.
Sway: winner gains all defeated strength cubes with matching loyalty from enemy units.
Tactics: no one loses cubes.
Tech: each of your units loses tech cubes equal to your foe’s lowest die roll (no loss if you have no tech cubes).
If a unit has no strength cubes left, it is destroyed and removed from play. It can be rebuilt later using the normal build action process. Surviving units on the defeated side can disperse and retreat into the local wilderness, or if Rockets are available, retreat to a controlled base on any of the seven worlds.
Battle Evolution
As various science projects are researched or Pulp Actions implemented, your combat capabilities may change during the game. The core mechanics above will remain, but new bonuses or penalties to the die roll, new battle cards, or different battle card draw process, or casualty process may happen.
As I am running my Romance of the Seven Worlds megagame on 5 June at Wellycon, its time to start posting some explanations about the game mechanics. In this post, its the romance subgame.
The design intent for these mechanics is to reflect the source material, facilitate emergent factions that will surprise us in play, and to tie into the player objectives that should drive gameplay.
Romance is used in a broad sense, covering a wide spectrum of relationships – from bitter hatred and jealous rivals, through mutual respect and platonic friendships, to passionate true love. A megagame is not a dating app and this romance subgame is not an excuse to sexually harass people. Be respectful of the personal space of other players, and do not touch people without their consent. There will be a safety brief about these mechanics at the start of the game.
Romance of the Seven Worlds is inspired by a range of planetary romance novels, comic strips and film serials from the first half of the 20th century, and the classic Flash Gordon movie from 1980. In designing this game, the goal has been to try and replicate the sense of wonder, larger-than-life adventures, and pulp action from these sources, but without the racism, colonialism, and misogyny that were present in many of the stories. In these sources, characters often made quick decisions about whether or not they trusted or disliked each other. We also do not have the time of a weekend LARP to allow slow burn romances to kindle, so the romance rules reflect the original six panel comic strips, which did waste panels on sultry looks and sitcom miscommunication.
Image from The Rise and Fall of the Trigan Empire, Mike Butterworth & Don Lawrence 2019.
The romance subgame is optional – you must choose to opt in to the subgame during casting. All players with characters that can be romanced will have a heart symbol on their character tag. Romance is not restricted by character faction, role, gender or species – you can court any player with a romanceable character.
If you opt into the romance subgame, you will receive an envelope at the start of the game containing cards you can give to your friends and lovers. These might reflect you loaning special powers or character abilities, or a bonus Pulp Action card.
Courting
You will be able to “court” other player characters in the game mainly in the World Phase – which is the open unscripted part of the game turn when players are free to move about and do actions as they see fit. You might be able to use a Pulp Action to court in other game phases, and there is a chance that battles can be ended by Romance.
Courting requires your character tokens to be in the same physical space on one of the world maps. You then need to have a conversation with the player who is playing that character role in the megagame. If you both agree, then you can each draw a card from the Romance deck (a deck of playing cards). If the cards you draw are:
Different Colours: nothing happens
Both Red: you are friends.
Both Black: you are rivals.
Both Red and Matching Card: you are best friends.
Both Black and Matching Card: you are bitter enemies.
Both Jokers: you share an unbreakable bond.
A card matches if it is the same value, e.g. the Jack of Hearts and Jack of Diamonds are a best friends match, the Ace of Spades and the Ace of Clubs are a bitter enemies match. Once a relationship is established, you should roleplay the situation to the best of your ability. Specific mechanical effects follow. The card decks will be weighted towards producing friendly results at the start of the game.
You can court a player once per game turn. You can court any number of different players in the same game turn (but this may not be the best use of your time).
Friends
You like your friends and should try to help them where possible. You may reveal any, all, or none of your objectives to your friend, and you can change one of your objectives to match that of an objective your friend holds (or vice versa). Keep the playing card to use for Inspiration. You may draw Romance cards again with your friend.
Objectives Note: Most players will start with 3-5 objectives about what they want to accomplish in the game.
Inspiration Note: Inspiration cards can be played to ask Control for the benefit of the doubt in a narrative situation, or to win a tie. Yes, you can win battles through the power of friendship. Inspiration cards are one use. If both sides in a tie play inspiration cards, the value of the card will be used to break the tie where possible (Aces High, Hearts trump). Inspiration cards are one use.
Rivals
You wish to see ill done to your rival, whether by your hand or that of others. You should not willingly help your rival. Note this rivalry down as a new objective. You may draw Romance cards again to overcome the rivalry only if an appropriate narrative moment occurs (e.g. surviving a duel with your rival, being imprisoned with your rival, both of you have death warrants signed by the Emperor, your true love asks you to reconcile, etc). Return the cards you drew to the deck.
Best Friends
While you can have any number of friends, you can only have one best friend at a time. If you already have a best friend, you must choose between them. Decide to either keep your card for inspiration, or for one of you to carry both inspiration cards. Give your best friend your bonus Pulp Action card (first best friend only). Both of you must reveal all of your objectives, and can change any, all, or none of your objectives to match each others. You may draw Romance cards again with your best friend.
Bitter Enemy
Only the death or disgrace and exile of your hated enemy will satisfy you. Add the elimination of your enemy to your objectives for the game. You can only have one bitter enemy at a time, if you already have a bitter enemy you must choose one feud to pursue. Return the cards you drew to the deck.
Unbreakable Bond / True Love
As for Best Friends, but give them your Unbreakable Bond Pulp Action card, which can always be played in situations involving your partner (normally Pulp Action cards are one use). You can only have one unbreakable bond at a time.
Mechanics Are Easy 