My return to RPGs in 2012 started w/ Dungeon Crawl Classics, struck out into the OSR frontier, explored three little brown books, revisited “blue box”, and have generally been rambling around the DIY indie scene. All this I’ve done as both a DM & a PC. There have been successes and failures on both sides of the screen.
I recently joined an Old School Essential (OSE) campaign run by Jason Hobbs. Part of the introduction to the campaign was a review of Jason’s house rules, those variants & rulings Jason uses in his game. This reminded of a similar compilation of my own.
I’ve re-organized my own house rules, which I consider a living document. Sharing those here as an example of the concepts that I find interesting or helpful in a game like Dungeons & Dragons.
It was 2000 and something and Too Fat Lardies had broken onto the miniature wargaming scene. They brought with them a simpler approach to the rule mechanics, focusing on degrading morale and leadership qualities, along with a passion for the history before the game.
One of the first sets our group settled on was Dux Britanniarum, a dark ages rule set with an abstracted campaign system. Perfect for our group! But like many things we quickly become distracted by the next shinny thing on the horizon, rinse and repeat.
I’ve been waiting to go back to Dux Britanniarum, perhaps someday I will. Fortunately in those heady days of collecting and painting a new scale I also prepared a quick reference sheet, available here.
Too Fat Lardies’ rulebooks tend to read a bit like historical essays. They meander a bit from subject to subject, key points buried in abstracted sections. Far different from the technical manual approach that I associate with the US tradition.
This quick reference should be helpful when finally returning to Dux Britanniarum.
Last year I was inspired by some one page adventure work going on in one of the OSR fragments. There was much talk about ‘zines, booklets, and pamphlets. One of the best ideas from Cody M. was a single sheet pamphlet folded into thirds, that kind of thing you might find at a county park.
I had been pondering a ‘zine and settled on this 1 page pamphlet format as a focused delivery. My friends Peter & Nils coined this pamphlet an “adventure trail-head”. Perfect! Gather you paper, pencils, and dice – set a course for adventure.
Print run for DunDraCon 2019 – end of an era…
The concept here is to provide a jumping off point for the GM of any table top role-playing game. The setting itself is cribbed from some AD&D 1e adventures notes I compiled in the early 90s – distilled down to a few key ideas, with some loaded questions for the GM or PCs to drive the fiction forward.
One final bit of graphic design shenanigans is a game board for some tavern gambling. A game within a game!
For those not familiar with To the Strongest – it is a British rule set published in 2015 – covering ancient through medieval wargaming. This game is a played on a grid, uses playing cards instead of dice, and very well suited to Table Top Simulator.
I’ve played a bit of To the Strongest on the physical tabletop, struggled with some of the basic concepts, and wrestled with army lists that assume some basic knowledge of the rules. All difficult points when learning a game. Settling into the 1066 tournament with group of seasoned players was a challenge. Falling back on my go to strategy of creating reference materials I refined the quick reference sheet for clarity & made reference materials out of the army lists themselves.
Have pulled together an introduction to virtual wargaming with To the Strongest using Tabletop Simulator: TTS on TTS. Hope it will inspire some to try miniature wargaming in a virtual space.
Update – March 21
Recently I recorded an actual play session. This might be a good way to learn how to play or at least gain an understanding of the game mechanics
Top down photo of a Warmaster Empire command stand w/ iOS Prisma Gothic filter
I’ve been chasing the online miniature wargaming dragon for a good while now – have had experience with Cyberboard, Vassal, Full Thrust Java Client, Table Top Simulator (unsucessfully), and now Roll20 (successfully).
For me Roll20 get’s closest to pushing units on the table top realtime with reasonable graphics. My first real implementation here, beyond the standard RPG, has been for Warmaster. This post describes that process of setting up such an environment.
Example of what’s been produced with this method
Tools Used
iPhone – camera & photo edits
Tripod – platform for the top down photograph
Prisma iOS app – photo filter
iPad – tablet based graphical editing
Apple Pencil – fine point stylus
Magic Eraser iOS app – transparency editor
Desktop PC – runs Roll20 in any web browser
MS Paint – creates the basic template
Roll20 – the tabletop platform
Photos
Shoot top down photos of a Warmaster army – 1 photo for each unique base type
Crop all photos to roughly same dimension
Push these photo through a filter – a bit more illustrative than photographic
Export filtered photos to iPad
Remove photo boarders with transparency editor – use Magic Eraser or similar
Import photos to PC
Create a “scaling reference” – 40x20mm = 280x140px – save this as a png – use MS Paint or similar
Roll20 Game
Create new game for Roll20
Configure new “map” – no grid – 5cm = 70px – 6×4 foot table = 37×25
Drag & drop appropriate texture or aerial photo to map, ensure it is on the “map layer”
Go to the “journal” – create a new “character” – edit that character so that Name = Basic Template, In Player’s Journals = All Players, Can be Edited… = All Players – save these changes
Again open & edit the “Basic Template”, click duplicate button x times
Drag & drop stand scaling reference to the table top
Drag & drop appropriate unit photo the table top
Scale the unit photo to the scaling reference
Select the re-scaled
Open one of the “Basic Template” copies and edit – Name = appropriate unit name – click “use selected token” – ensure that “all players” is set for journals & controls – save changes
Repeat
Roll20 Macros
You may wish to create the following macros – ensuring that they are shared with “all players” and marked as “in bar” – these provide a simple button to throw x dice.
#1d6
/r 1d6
#2d6
/r 2d6
#3d6
/r 3d6
#Attack
/em attacks
/r ?{How many attacks}d6s>4
***Note: 5+ vs defended & 6+ vs fortified***
#Save
/em saves
/r ?{How many saves}d6s>?{Armor value}
#Drive-Back
/em checking drive backs
/r ?{How many hits}d6s
***Target confused on any d6 = 6***
***Target driven off if result greater than its movement rate***
Have created Mighty Empires assets and kicked off a 5 player campaign. Mighty Empire tiles are available here. Use them as a deck of cards in Roll20 on a unique map.
Have also posted a new video an actual play from the first battle fought in our Mighty Empires campaign. Empire(1185 pts) vs Empire (1500 pts). This condensed to 30 minutes to provide a good overview of Warmaster game play on the Roll20 interface.
