Custom multi player single model (per person) narrative campaign

[BaylorCorvette]

Opening Statement:

If you're only interested in competitive matched play type of games, I'm going to stop you right here. Don't bother wasting your time readying this. HOWEVER, if you're interested in a fun, laid back narrative style game where you and your buddies (or even by yourself) embark on an adventure  please continue reading.

 

Background:
Well folks, with the global pandemic generating some more spare time than normal I took a shot at making a custom multi player SINGLE model (per player) narrative campaign.  I really put the pen to the paper after I played GW's "Solo Warhammer: Troggoth Slayers" game, the rules were released on April 9, if you haven't played it or do not know what it is check it out HERE. 

I've been wanting to do something like this for a while now. A few of my buddies and I played various MMO's in our past and the idea of having a single character that you can give a backstory to and make stronger over time really appealed to us. You may be saying "gee this sounds a lot like D&D" and I'm sure you're probably right, however I've never played D&D. Rather than just playing D&D I wanted to take the basic rules and game mechanics of AoS and tweak them for the purposes of what I'm trying to achieve. That way it's a fairly easy transition between AoS and this game. Also you can just use AoS models. On top of all of that a few of my friends are super casual AoS players and the idea of having 20-50 models that you have to control all with special rules, stats, etc was sometimes a turn off to them. 

The idea here is multi-fold:

1) Use as many AoS rules as possible to make it an easy transition between a "normal" AoS game and this custom campaign game. In the Google Doc (linked below) you'll find the first tab called "Rules" here is where I have tweaked existing AoS rules or explained the new rules for this game.

2) Create a game where you can have a single model that you gear up and get special stats, abilities, etc. Much like a character in an MMO game.

3) Personalize and Customize - Build your character how YOU want. What does this mean? Pick a class, a race, armor type, weapon types, command abilities, prayers, spells, etc. This really opens things up to kit bashing a model based on your character or finding preexisting GW model that has a similar "loadout" as the character you just built for this narrative campaign.
4) Create a game where you and your buddies can casually play on the same "team." In my years of playing tabletop games I've ran into my fair share of people that are intimidated playing someone one-on-one. So what this custom game allows, is you and your buddies to play as a team against the A.I. while also teaching basic AoS mechanics. This kind of gets their feet wet, so to speak and maybe make the transition into playing a "real" AoS game easier.

Alright enough talk, you probably just want to know more about the game right?  I will post a link below to the Google Doc that will allow you to view the various pages I have put together. Disclaimer: THIS IS STILL A WORK IN PROGRESS. I am still working through this but I very much welcome feedback, ideas and suggestions and by all means if this is something that appeals to you, feel free and take the framework and tweak it to how you want to play. I just want to share what I've done with the community and hopefully make these days during the pandemic go by a little faster.

Getting Started:
To get started you need to build your character. You do that by selecting a Class, Race, Weapon(s), Armor, Command Abilities, Prayers and Spells. You get 100 points to "build" your character.

Step 1: Open the Google Doc Here

Step 2: Go to the second tab called "Classes & Races" from here you select a class. There are five of them, Warrior, Warrior Priest, Priest, Battle Mage, Wizard. All of these classes have weapon and armor restrictions and special rules. After you pick your class you need to pick your race which there are five of currently: Human, Elf, Orc, Goblin, Dwarf. All of the races start with base stats for Wounds, Movement, Bravery and Special Rules.

Step 3: Go to the third tab called "Weapons" from here you select what weapons your character will have, don't worry you're not stuck with these weapons for the entire duration of the campaign. They all have points associated with them. Weapons highlighted in yellow are "upgraded weapons" which you do not get to start with but at a later time can upgrade to. You can compare the level 1 vs. the upgraded level 2 weapons and you'll notice that the upgraded weapon gets better, it may hit better, wound better, have more rend, do more damage or gain a special rule. NOTE: certain classes can only have certain weapons. A Warrior can use nearly any weapon but a Wizard for instance can only use 1 handed weapons or a Staff.

Step 4: Go to the fourth tab called "Armor" from here you select your armor type. There are currently three options Heavy (3+ save) Medium (4+ save) and Light (5+ save+) you also may get a movement penalty depending how heavy the armor is. NOTE: certain classes can only wear certain types of armor. A Warrior can wear all three types but a Wizard can only wear light armor where as a Battle Mage can wear light OR medium.

Step 5: Depending on what class you selected you need to pick a command ability (5th tab), prayer (6th tab) or spell (7th tab) for your character. Warriors learn Command Abilities, Priests and Warrior Priests learn Prayers , Wizards and Battle Mages learn Spells.

Step 6: Double check and make sure your character's loadout adds up to no more than 100 points. On the 8th tab called "Characters" I generated a sample character that is a Human Vampire Warrior, wearing Heavy Armor (50 pts), wielding a Reaperblade lvl 1 (25 pts) in the main hand, a Hand Weapon (10 pts) in the offhand and knows "Spurred by the Gods" (15 pts) Command ability. Total cost for that character is 100 points.

Step 7: Your character is built and ready to conquer the mortal realms!

Step 8: Find a friend to create your merry band of Heros or play Solo. 

 

*You'll notice that a lot of the weapons, command abilities, prayers, spells, etc are the same name as ones in AoS. in some cases they have the same exact stats/effects but in many cases I have tweaked the stats, casting values, effects, etc.

 

Right now the only missions and enemy units are those from the "Solo Warhammer: Troggoth Slayers" that GW published. I will be using that as a starting point on how to create future missions and add in other units. Again, the idea here is to use whatever models you have and create your own "narrative" as to whats going on. I personally have a lot of Legions of Nagash models, so my buddies and I will be starting out this campaign fighting a bunch of Skeletons, Zombies and Ghosts. On the first tab called "Rules" you will see a rule called "Battle Points" right now this is part of the game currency. If you get a minor victory you get 1 BP and if you get a major victory you get 2 BP's. I haven't written the rules yet, but you will be able to stockpile this and buy or upgrade weapons, abilities, etc.

 

Current Quests / Games (last updated April 21, 2020):

I currently have two Quests created, each quests has several games. These first two are based off of GW's games. I will continue to update this. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1K2-Zd7TJixYSmRtZqxuDDckpC538K8JuG9bT4FJCmOw/edit?usp=sharing

 

Closing Comments & Thoughts: 

-This is still very much in the early stages. This has been play tested in three games so far (see post below) as of the time of this posts update (4/18/20).

-I need to create more missions to pick from. However, my thought is that this type of game doesn't have a list of missions with everything preset (objectives, enemies, etc) it is supposed to be fluid and changing depending on what happens. So it is a good idea to have one of the players be kind of a "Dungeon Master" in terms of creating a narrative with events that happen. Maybe your campaign starts out with zombies and skeletons attacking a local village and your group in trying to defend the village. Once you successfully (or perhaps unsuccessfully) defend the village your next mission might be trying to determine where these zombies and skeletons came from, etc.

-Loot System, I've been throwing this idea around on how to implement a loot system. My initial thought is at the end of certain missions you use a random number generator and compare it to the list of weapons you can build your character with. Whatever the random number correlates to, you "find" or "loot" that weapon and you can choose to keep it or dismantle/sell it.

-Special Items, again another idea I've thrown around is implementing special items in the game that your character can have on them and use in game.

 

What can YOU do to help?

If you've made it this far (pat yourself on the back!) and find this interesting I just created a Discord Server to discuss this, but this thread can be used too. Link to Discord Server is: https://discord.gg/wRzEgju . I'm looking for feedback, and suggestions on the game idea as a whole but also ideas on a Loot System, Special Items that can be found, purchased, or acquired in other ways in game

Edited April 21, 2020 by BaylorCorvette
grammar

[BaylorCorvette]

Myself and two buddies played three games last night and things went very well. We had 1 Human Vampire Warrior in Heavy armor wielding a Reaperblade and Hand Weapon, 1 Goblin Battle Mage in Medium armor wielding a Rot Pocked Hand weapon and Shadow Dagger Spell and then 1 Elf Wizard in Light armor wielding a Sigmarite Runeblade with Daemonic Power and Vile Transferense spell.

First game narrative was a village was being attacked by Trolls, specifically three units of Rockgut Troggoths. We cleared the mission. Our Goblin Battle Mage got incapacitated but was Resuscitated.

Second game narrative was now that the village was secure our band of Heros pushed out into the nearby ruins where we ran into three units of Fellwater Troggoths. We cleared this one fairly easily.

Third game narrative was we discovered that the Trolls were coming from a local cave / mine system. Our Hero's entered it to slay their leader. This game had two units of Fellwater Troggoths, 1 unit of Rockgut Troggoths and their leader which was a Dankhold Troggboss. We cleared the mine but not before the Goblin Battle Mage became incapacitated.

After the three games we had a brief discussion. We all agreed that some lucky dice rolls on our end definitely heled along with some unlucky A.I. dice rolls. However the command ability Spurred by the Gods (double the number of melee attacks) paired with someone that has Daemonic Power (re-roll hit & wound rolls) is super strong. I'm considering making Daemonic power re-roll hit, wound and save rolls of 1. I think that might make it a little more balanced. When the Daemonic Power spell didn't go off, the "killing" potential of our Heros felt about right.

The possibility of carrying over wounds from a previous game is a nice variable. From the first game to the second game both the Battle Mage and Warrior were at full health however going from the second game to the third game both the Battle Mage and Warrior went in with a wound on them.

The Events Table is cool, to make each mission have its own event that can happen. We are thinking that that a mid game events table would make a nice addition to the game. One member of our discord mention a "Ulgu Thief event" that could work something like this:

As you walk cautiously under the looming presence of a structure you hear a sudden rustle and see an inky blackness open in the shadows. A figure darts for your weapons! (The player may choose to batter the figure away or grapple with it. If battered the event ends. If grappled then use the D6 chart.) Roll a 1: The figure wins and grabs your loot before disappearing in the portal forever. (if no loot then the event ends as the figure spits a curse at your poverty. Useful for beginning adventurers) Roll 2-5: You've won the grapple but are pulled into the portal. You quickly find yourself elsewhere under another shadow. (teleport to another structure or near an enemy) Roll 6: You've won the grapple and frightened the creature into begging for it's life. It conjures a steed of shadows in exchange for it's life.(increased movement speed this scenario)

Edited April 18, 2020 by BaylorCorvette

[BaylorCorvette]

I have created two series of Quests, each with several "missions" or games. These two have been inspired by GW's, and serves as a good start. I will be continuing to add on to this.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1K2-Zd7TJixYSmRtZqxuDDckpC538K8JuG9bT4FJCmOw/edit?usp=sharing