Way Off-Topic: Question for RPGamers

[Dr. Shades]

Plenty of Axis and Allies, . . .

Funny you should mention that game. For trivia purposes, here's an alternate rulebook I wrote for the original 1984 edition that I sell online:

https://www.historicalboardgaming.com/C ... p_682.html

[honorentheos]

Plenty of Axis and Allies, . . .

Funny you should mention that game. For trivia purposes, here's an alternate rulebook I wrote for the original 1984 edition that I sell online:

https://www.historicalboardgaming.com/C ... p_682.html

Thanks Shades! Pretty sure I checked this out before, too. It's one of our favorite wargames. Our daughter and I have compelled many a guest into a long Saturday game because she was always trying to find someone else to team up with to try and beat me. Kids.

[Physics Guy]

Our group also played some long wargames, but not A&A or Battletech. I think the long games we played most were Titan and Machiavelli.

Titan is a terrible game from 1980, when people didn't know any better. Most of the time you're just waiting for other players to move. It's cool because you get to raise legions of different mythical creatures and fight battles by rolling big fistfuls of dice, but I cannot recommend it.

Machiavelli is a slightly more complex upgrade from Diplomacy, set in Renaissance Italy instead of pre-WW1 Europe. Its complications are mostly distinct improvements in my opinion, but it shares the basic feature of Diplomacy, that it's a conquest game with trivially simple tactics that tend strongly to fruitless stand-offs. The only way to get anything done in the game is to persuade other players to help you significantly—and so negotiating short-term alliances is the actual point of the game. The only rule for the negotiation phase of each turn is a mutually agreed-upon time limit.

A typical negotiation phase might have the Austrian Kaiser desperately trying to drag the Pope away to the kitchen to propose a scheme out of earshot of the Duke of Milan, but the Pope has been buttonholed in the hall by the Sultan and with time running out the Kaiser has to just flop down on the couch and deal with the Doge. You can get exercise running around the house negotiating.

The game is balanced enough that the only way to win is to betray someone, but everyone also knows this. They not only would betray you to win, too: they are probably doing it this very turn. On the other hand, the game can't be won in just a single turn, and you can't afford to burn up all your credibility too soon. One of the best ways to get people to cooperate with you, even though they know they can't trust you, is to call a crusade against another player who clearly actually is close to winning. If you can betray the other crusaders at the right time, you can then win yourself. You have to work close to the edge for that, though, because your leverage comes from letting someone else nearly win. Also, at least one other player is trying to do the same thing at the same time you are.

Once the timer goes off, everyone writes out their orders to all their units and puts the page on the table without showing it to anyone else. Then all the orders are read; everything resolves simultaneously, and you discover who kept their promises and who did anything but. There are no game rules to make any promises binding, and the only consequence of lying is that the other players know, afterward, that you lied. Occasionally there is such a perfect circle of backstabbing, when all the orders have been read, that each person's orders prevent the next person's orders from taking place and so nothing at all actually happens and nobody is in any position to complain.

Like all Diplomacy-type games, it's a hard game to win twice in a row against the same group of players, because after you've won, everyone remembers what a treacherous villain you are until someone else supplants you in hateful memory. You should only play it with good friends or strangers.

ETA: Titan is a bad game, but it's a good bad game. Because the combination of chance and tight constraints in its movement rules effectively makes long-term strategy impossible, it works well as a background activity for a day of doing anything else that's relaxing, such as, oh, drinking beer. Whenever someone bumps one of your stacks you can just take a quick time out to go over to the table and fight, and when your turn to move finally comes up, you can set down your mug, roll your die, and react. By the time you get finished moving you'll be a drink behind, but you'll have time to catch up. In the middle of a six-player game, you're lucky to move once an hour. The beer might not help with that, but it honestly isn't mainly the beer.

[honorentheos]

Like all Diplomacy-type games,...(y)ou should only play it with good friends or strangers.

I'd agree but apparently I never had good enough friends since Diplomacy always led to hurt feelings. Especially for anyone who thought they were about to win and then got teamed up against. Wasn't uncommon for people to not talk to each other for a few days afterward, and bring it up in unrelated context when it was still fresh.

"Hey, want to chip in for pizza on Friday?"

"Nah, I'll take care of myself. Wouldn't want to have a bunch of backstabbers promise to split it evenly then only end up with a slice..."

[honorentheos]

To add to the above, I realized this also applied to our games of Risk and Axis and Allies, so I guess that confirms we probably had a little growing to do.

[Physics Guy]

Looking up a boardgames site to which to link for Machiavelli, I found some reviews of the game, which I haven't played myself in over thirty years. One guy who apparently played it a lot wrote that he developed a strategy of honour, in which he never actually lied or broke promises. He just worded all his agreements carefully. From what he wrote I got the impression that some of his promises might have been worded ambiguously, so that people might not get what they thought they were getting, but it sounded as though he mainly just made carefully limited commitments, such as specifying time frames or including opt-out clauses that he could invoke after a two-turn warning. He claimed that this worked well enough for him, and I can see that it would confer some advantages once people got to know that you played that way, because people would be willing to trust you, perhaps even to the point of taking a meagre deal from you over a lucrative offer from someone less reliable. If you played the game often against the same people, this would really be helpful.

I'm pretty sure that it would consistently save you from losing too badly, but I'm dubious that it would give you a high win rate. In Machiavelli, nice guys probably don't actually tend to finish last, but they probably don't finish first much.

On the other hand, being honest might even give you an edge in winning, if the other players were faced with a late-game choice between giving the win to you or to someone more obnoxious. That might happen often enough that you would also win more than your share with an honest approach. I think it would only work if you played often enough with the same people that memory of in-game character was an important factor.

[honorentheos]

ETA: Titan is a bad game, but it's a good bad game. Because the combination of chance and tight constraints in its movement rules effectively makes long-term strategy impossible, it works well as a background activity for a day of doing anything else that's relaxing, such as, oh, drinking beer. Whenever someone bumps one of your stacks you can just take a quick time out to go over to the table and fight, and when your turn to move finally comes up, you can set down your mug, roll your die, and react. By the time you get finished moving you'll be a drink behind, but you'll have time to catch up. In the middle of a six-player game, you're lucky to move once an hour. The beer might not help with that, but it honestly isn't mainly the beer.

https://colossus.sourceforge.net/

Haven't tried it yet but it seems interesting.

[Physics Guy]

Yeah, Titan has had surprisingly many surprisingly keen fans, for such a bad game. It has appealing elements and people want to save it from its faults. There have been a lot of alternate rule proposals. My brothers and I have tried to make improvements, ourselves, but it's quite hard to fix the game's flaws without losing its charm. It's like trying to keep the goodness of peanut butter and just take out the stickiness.

Titan is a two-level game: stacks move around on the world grid, and when stacks collide their constituent units fight it out on a separate mini-grid. The tactical battles that you play on the separate boards are simple miniature war-games, with some luck and some tactics, and their style fits the game's flavor well. The most distinctive part of Titan is the stack-level movement and growth that takes place on the world board. It's not Risk, where you're conquering territory: it's a demolition derby of little fantasy armies that can grow and divide.

Unfortunately this distinctive and interesting world-map part of Titan is also the tedious part. It takes each player a long time to get all their stacks moved each turn. Computerizing the game has the potential to speed it up enormously by just telling you instantly what your movement and recruitment choices are for each of your stacks. That doesn't solve all Titan's problems, but it might solve the biggest one. So maybe this Java implementation will finally save Titan.

[honorentheos]

For anyone interested:

WORK GAME SESSION 12 RECAP

Rasxan and Xerxia began the session having been pulled into the border ethereal by the plague doctor, from where they watched the events of Session 11 play out as if seen through a thin waterfall. The plague doctor informed them that he was constrained while in Palisades by rules all must follow that only allowed entry into or exit out of the city “by stairs or by gate”, but that as long as they remained in the border between the ethereal and material planes they would be safe. Xerxia and Rasxan observed Null, Annalee, Ellery, and Keno as they made their way through the basement, and Arctica as she continued forward in her attempt to infiltrate the upper floors of the guildhouse. But they also could observe the movements of the guildhouse occupants, seeing Elix and Gwish moving with three other guildmembers towards the stables after having been alerted by the man who had been laying on the stairs when Null left Elix’s room. They watched as this man, who had made his way to the main building, began to climb the stairs and was heard by Arctica who made noise as she attempted to hide, followed by seeing him change form to look like Null who he had seen. They watched his attempt to lure Arctica to him, the resulting alert as she pointed a drawn bow at him, and her maneuvering around enemies to gain entrance into the study outside Rijal’s bedroom. They observed as the man who had previously looked like Null ran back down the stairs to alert the four guildmembers sitting in a parlor at the bottom of the stairs where two were playing cards and two others appeared to have fallen asleep. Roused by the shapechanger that you learned was a doppelganger named Jaymont, the four guildmembers left to follow Jaymont up the stairs…just ahead of the rest of the party entering the room having found their way up into the same room from the basement through a ladder and hidden trap door located under a blue chair. They observed Rijal first dressing and going out through the study past the hidden Arctica before being alerted by the guildmember Arctica had fought there that Rijal had missed finding an intruder that had snuck into the study. Arctica had left the study, found Dartinal laying in Rijal’s bed smoking a pipe and tied him up before heading up the stairs to find the painting. The plague doctor warned Xerxia and Rasxan in time to hide as they observed Rijal activate a magic ring on her finger and suddenly step into the border ethereal with them! She then pushed off, gliding up unconstrained by gravity, through the floor and into the upper room where she then stepped out of the border ethereal back into the material plane to confront Arctica. The plague doctor told Xerxia and Rasxan that destiny had need of them and, if they assisted destiny in this moment the time would come when destiny would aid Xerxia in finding those she sought, and Rasxan in discovering who he truly is. “Now GO!” urged the plague doctor, shoving them both through the barrier between the ethereal and material planes from which they emerged in the upper room, Xerxia on the stairs below and behind Rijal, and Rasxan in the room just out of Rijal’s sight.

The combat continued as Rijal slashed Arctica with a poisoned shortsword after Arctica refused to release the painting which Rijal referred to as someone not even death had been able to keep from her. Xerxia snuck up behind Rijal, stabbing her with her dagger only to then be levitated by the picture’s magic and thrown down the stairs where Annalee had arrived in time to help cushion her fall. In the room below, Keno and Null engaged the four guildmembers attempting to gain access into the parlor, telling Ellery they had things handled so she turned and ran up the stairs to help the others with Rijal and the painting. While Null was focused on the guildmembers attempting to force their way into the room, Keno heard footsteps running down the front porch in their direction, and Gwish saying to Elix, “Well Elix, it appears your plaything was part of a set! How fun!”, which Elix rebuffed with cursing.

Hearing the sounds of the odds swinging against them, Keno burst through a window out onto the porch and threw one of the fireball beads which incinerated the three lower level guildmembers while Elix and Gwish continued to charge forward. Elix left Gwish to deal with Null and Keno, shouting out for Rijal and running up the stairs in the attempt to find her.

In the upper floors the party members attempted to stall Rijal as Arctica ran past her and down the stairs with the painting. Rasxan blasted Rijal with his lightning breath, Annalee shot her with her crossbow, and Xerxia continuing to slash at her with her dagger as Arctica ran past them to the bottom of the stairs…running into Jaymont who had made his way up to assist Rijal! Jaymont slammed his fists into Arctica’s kidneys, knocking her unconscious, but he was unable to prevent Xerxia from grabbing the painting and rushing further down the stairs past Ellery who was making her way up. Rijal used her ring to move to block Xerxia from escaping as Jaymont closed on her down the stairs, but Xerxia deftly tossed the painting past him back up the stairs, “monkey in the middle” style, past Jaymont to Ellery who had previously healed Arctica and got her back on her feet through her spiritual contact with her deceased mentor, Shugz.

On the ground floor, Keno found himself attacked not only by Gwish but also a large raven that appeared to be following her commands. Null managed to kill two of the guidemembers as well as Elix who had been seeking to get to Rijal. He jumped out the window to aid Keno by striking her with his lightning javelin. This provoked Gwish who suddenly unleashed a brutal cold blast that both Keno and Null managed to partially avoid but still took significant damage. The final guildmember left alive to that point also stood in the blast area of her spell, and he was left a frozen statue by her which Gwish seemed to not care about at all as she shoved his frozen body off the porch to the ground below to get to Null. Making matters worse, the “raven” revealed itself to be something demonic in form as it suddenly attempted to frighten Keno. But Keno, in his rage, blew off this attempt and moved to focus his attacks on Gwish. As Keno slashed down at her with his great ax, drawing blood, she grinned widely…then wider still as the grin became inhumanly wide, her body swelling and her skin taking on a greenish hue as she “hulked out” into her true, large form towering over even the goliath Keno. “Delicious,” she purred, readying her now oversized glaive for even more combat.

Upstairs, the painting and Ellery had a quick conversation after it realized she had her own contacts in the afterlife, suggesting if she was willing it would join her instead of Rijal. Ellery agreed, and suddenly found the image in the painting that she saw looked like Shugz. Rijal, no longer emotionally invested in the painting, reevaluated the situation and shouted to the remaining Grinning Sinners that it was every person for themselves, before she then turned to retreat as well. She was confronted by Xerxia, Ellery, Annalee, Rasxan, and Arctica in turn, ending her story stabbed through by Arctica’s rapier.

The rest of the party then rushed to the ground floor where Keno was doing his best to remain standing as he took multiple blows from Gwish, each seeming to her to be a finishing move. Just as he seemed to be on his last legs, Annalee rushed out past Gwish and force fed him a potion of greater healing which acted like an adrenaline shot to the heart as he found himself reinvigorated for the fight. Gwish made her last stand, attempting to bring Keno down before she fell but he withstood her blows and stared her down as Xerxia leapt onto her back and slashed at her until she fell, defeated.

Having defeated the Grinning Sinners and obtained the painting, the next few hours were spent searching the buildings of the guild house.

Arctica returned to the bedroom and freed Rijal’s lover she had tied up there. Dartinal Livereth told her he was one of the leaders of the interplanar trade co-op in the city called the Brilliant Shield, and in return for her kindness she need only ask a member of the co-op using his name, and she would be given a favor. She had also previously taken a necklace from the priest corpse in the coffin, which is a Necklace of Divine Favor (added to her character sheet in dndbeyond). Null also gave her a heavy two-handed crossbow with crossbow bolts. Keep in mind she isn’t proficient with a heavy crossbow, which means she can use it but without adding her proficiency bonus to the attack roll.

Xerxia discovered the cowering Dury being terrorized by the mimic who believed him to be aiding the butter thief. Helping resolve their dispute, Dury confirmed he was, in fact, working for the Velvet Glove which was an upstart thieves guild in the city. And since the party had helped eliminate the local chapter of the Grinning Sinners who were their biggest, most established rivals, they would grant her a favor for aiding him as well. She also previously took a keen butcher’s knife from the kitchen. This dagger is silvered, does +1 damage, and crits on a roll of 19 or 20. Added to her inventory on dndbeyond.

Null searched Gwish’s room where he discovered the Vorpal Great Sword +1 (added to his character sheet in dndbeyond), as well as messages she had recently received and a sheet of messages she had appeared to be preparing. Null had previously also discovered six pieces of costume jewelry worth approximately 30 gold pieces total.

Ellery revisited the basement to explore the storage rooms where she found a false bottom in a crate that had been overlooked, discovering a magic rapier +1 (added to her character sheet in dndbeyond). She is also attuned to the magical portrait that she sees as a picture of Shugz. Finally, she had previously discovered a gold necklace with a black pearl pendant estimated to be worth 750 gold pieces. She also took a light crossbow and a large number of crossbow bolts.

Rasxan removed the ring from Rijal’s hand, discovering the magical properties of the Ring of Ethereal Jaunt (added to his character sheet in dndbeyond).

Annalee searched the main storage room of the guildhouse and discovered a large collection of valuable goods that included:

Six casks of exquisite elven wine worth approximately 250 gold pieces each
Six poisoner’s kits
Eight sets of thieves’ tools
Two spyglasses worth maybe 1,000 gold pieces each
A gold leafed holy symbol shaped like the sun worth approximately 25 gold pieces
A sun-shaped death mask made of gold worth approximately 250 pieces
10 rations worth of preservable food from the kitchen

Keno got some sleep after a glorious fight, dreaming of combat and rage…and how cool his necklace of fireball is with its remaining six beads.

The party also assisted Pitt that morning by providing him a reference to the Velvet Glove.

Other Treasure:

Coins: The various searches of rooms and fallen sinners turned up coins equal to:

2267 copper pieces (keeping in mind most folks would use these daily so they are a common coin carried by average people, akin to dollars. 100 copper pieces = 1 gold piece. Total value of 22.67 gold pieces)
535 silver pieces (each roughly a day’s wages for a common worker. 10 silver pieces = 1 gold piece. Total value 53.5 gold pieces)
51 gold pieces (each roughly a week’s wages for a common worker)


Gems: The following loose gems were found, mostly in Rijal’s room:

One blue quartz (worth 10 gold pieces)
One piece of uncut obsidian (worth 10 gold pieces)
One piece of uncut turquoise (worth 10 gold pieces)
Three pieces of shaped Jasper (worth 50 gold pieces each, total value 150 gold pieces)
One piece of cut Bloodstone (worth 50 gold pieces)
One Onyx (worth 50 gold pieces)
One Moonstone (worth 50 gold pieces)


Weapons recovered in useable condition:

10 scimitars
11 light crossbows (in addition to the one Ellery took for her own use)
4 heavy crossbows (in addition to the one Null took and gave to Arctica)


Session Finale

The session ended with the party spending the remainder of the morning at the Grinning Sinner’s guildhouse, resting for 8 hours (the time needed for a long rest), having learned new skills as you level up to 5th level!



In game, the next session will start just before noon.

[honorentheos]

I'm curious what their response to your question was (regarding how much players in a game miss that a DM has prepared), cause if it isn't "every damn session" they likely should take a turn on the other side of the table. It certainly was an eye-opener for me.

Coming back to this, here's an example from my last work session where I had prepared short backstories and motivations for Rijal, the head of the Grinning Sinner's guild in Palisades, and connected her to Elix. It's the type of background information I find useful to have back of pocket when an NPC's motivations should probably be more than just stealing gold/survive. It helps inform dialog, choices, etc.

From my notes:

• Rijal sees her lost lover, Quei, when she looks at the portrait and hears his voice when it talks to her. This started when she became attuned to it. She will die trying to keep it from being taken from her.

• Caoimhin, (pronounced Kwe-vyn) lost lover of Rijal, affectionally referred to him as Quei, as did his friends. Elix was his comrade in arms before joining the sinners, came from Fairbanks, worked together on gambling schemes. Made a mistake winning too much off Warwick Quillwell and had to leave. Went to Palisades because it was outside of Quillwell influence where they met Rijal, joined the sinners. CAOIMHIN was a handsome blue skinned tiefling and he attracted Rijal. They became more than lovers, almost soulmates. Then he disappeared a little over a year ago. Since he disappeared, Rijal has become more cunning in her work while more reckless in her treating of men and women lovers as disposable. She is not intentionally cruel, but she is not concerned about emotional attachment as she can't form one with anyone now herself so it isn't on her mind that others may see her trysts as something more than satisfying a need. Her feelings are still for Quei which she had buried until the painting arrived two days ago and encouraged her to attune to it.

• Elix has always had feelings for Rijal but could never act on them, both when she and Quei were together and since his disappearance when she was clearly emotionally avoiding confronting his loss. Elix handles it poorly, too, by playing along with her avoidance because he can't approach her without mixing in his feelings for her, brushing aside her need with the belief he would betray his friend if he opened up to her. He knows she claims to see him in the painting and claims it talks to her, but Elix assumes it's her just seeing the attractive figure of Boselli and imagining talking to Quei.

• Dartinal Lindsor, half-elf high born lover of Rijal, sleeping in her bed and smoking his pipe if she leaves. #2 of the Brilliant Shield, a trade co-op in the City that deals in interplanar commerce. Dartinal is permanently stationed in Palisades. Head of the Brilliant Shield is Uuthred Evenflow who regularly travels between planes. Uuthred is currently ascended the Eternal Staircase. Dartinal knows Rijal is using him for sex, is ok with it, though he does admire her and if there were ever an opening for a relationship he would pursue it. He has fondness for her, but not enough of a bond that he would ever act in a way that jeopardizes his self-preservation.

So what happened with this information?

When Arctica took the portrait, Rijal immediately knew through the attunement with sentient items connection with her and she used an ability to rush to them. When she arrived she told Arctica, "“I don’t know you or what you want with him. But what Quei and I shared is unbreakable. I won't let anyone come between us!”

As noted above, the resulting confrontation largely involved the party keeping the painting from her, her repeatedly telling them they could leave if they left it and no one need die, but she'd kill anyone who tried to take Quei from her, the party doing exactly that, her losing her connection to the painting when it saw a chance to connect with Ellery instead, confused declaring the sinners should save themselves, and being killed. Elix used each of his turns trying to get to and protect her, only to die in the attempt. Dartinal was tied up to the bed and left out of the conflict, then released by Arctica while the party was searching the building where he offered a short comment to Arctica about Rijal's bond with the portait resulting in her death being a result of her unfortunate infatuation with her lost lover. Players didn't dig into that, I left that as is. Could it help to know that? That's the sort of thing where a pulled thread would be given more importance since the party showed interest in it. As is, the backstory elements about the Quillwells is potentially useful, knowing about Quei could be useful as he isn't actually dead...but it served its purpose, helping the NPCs be more than sparring dummies.

Oh, and the painting?

• CO 5337, also known as the Portrait of Boselli, made its way to the Grinning Sinners as part of a scheme by the Kyrenakoi at the direction of Graz'zt, believing it would be taken into the Daegr’s High Hall if recovered. Only Gwish knows this of the Sinners in Palisades. Graz'zt is seeking to use the Mallus Deus to manipulate the Daegr to inadvertently further the aims of the Kyrenakoi. This was his plot to gain audience with them.

• If Graz’zt reveals himself through the portrait, he will suggest to the Daegr he will help them recover the created copies of the Mallus Deus if they return the original to him. He’ll promise to let them keep it 1 year to study and then secure it in Azzagrat for 100 years, his layers of control in the abyss.

So...