I imagine the solo wargame crowd being pretty small, and the subset using the Mythic GME even smaller. And those who've actually read my game War In Space... well that's a miniscule number. So to all but a select few (probably just me), this post will read pretty esoteric. Like a non-gamer wandering into a D&D conversation and trying to decipher THAC0, hit dice, and save vs. rods.
Anyway, I plan on combining my solo campaign rules with the Mythic GME to run a space war. I'll flip playing cards as my rules describe, generating two opposing space forces. Then I'll ask the question: "will this encounter have a significant impact on the war?" and roll on the Mythic Fate Chart.
As per Mythic rules, four results exist: "Exceptional No", "No", "Yes", and "Exceptional Yes". "Exceptional No" means the encounter has absolutely no impact on the war; I won't bother fighting it out. Instead, I'll flip more cards and generate another two forces, repeating the process.
If the Mythic result is "No" the battle has a negligible impact on the war, but if the cards reveal an interesting mix of ships I may just fight it out. Regardless of which side wins, neither card deck will change as a result of the battle. More likely if I get a "No" result I won't fight the battle but I'll randomly generate a few dictionary words and come up with the seeds to a role-playing adventure involving the space battle (even if only peripherally). That's what a "No" on the Mythic Fate Chart will indicate for me: idea seeds that either serve as an "anthology" type RPG, or as set-ups to later wargame scenarios. For example, I roll up a "No" result but then roll "teetotaler" and "question-mark" from the dictionary. I wrack my brain and decide maybe a certain taskforce commander prohibits the junior officers in his formation from drinking booze, but perhaps one of his patrol boat captains, a lieutenant, is running a lucrative alcohol smuggling operation. The lieutenant's operation brings his little ship in contact with a supposed "enemy" ship on a regular basis; liquor pays much better than fighting. There's a lot of ideas to springboard off of there; the wayward Lt. is a secret intelligence agent (straight RPG adventure), or the smugglers get caught during a shore leave, causing a shoot-out with authorities (set-up for next scenario).
A "Yes" to the question posed above means I'll fight the battle normally, and the winning force gets to lose a face card from their deck, as detailed in my campaign rules. Lose a card? What the hell am I talking about? Download and read it! I'll usually use the dictionary method above not for an RPG adventure, but to set up a scenario for the actual battle.
An "Exceptional Yes" indicates a potential turning point in the war: a sinking of the Bismark, a Coral Sea, a Midway, etc. I'll fight the battle but in this case the winner will get to discard two face cards: a decided advantage in the overall campaign. Maybe I'll integrate it into a ground miniature game, like a space D-Day.
OK, so how will I decide the odds for the Mythic Fate Chart? I'll assume the odds of a "Yes" answer to the question "will this encounter have a significant impact on the war?" are "Has to be" if the forces are equal. My logic is that for the big, pivotal events of a war, the opposing sides will try to bring all their resources to bear and generally will field similar forces. So I'll take the difference in the sizes of forces (in terms of Systems boxes) and use this to reduce the odds of a "Yes". For a difference of every 4 Systems boxes, I will drop the odds of a "Yes" one level. Example: I draw a small force for Side A which totals 14 Systems boxes, and a larger one for Side B with 47 boxes. The difference of 33 boxes drops the odds eight levels, all the way down to "Very Unlikely" that the encounter matters to the war. If I still roll a "Yes" in this case, well I'll just have to come up with a solid scenario to make the battle worth playing despite the disparity.
The final element of the Mythic Fate Chart, the Chaos Rank, starts at 5 for the first card draw of the campaign. When a numerically inferior force wins an engagement, the Chaos Rank increases 1. When a numerically superior force wins, the Chaos Rank drops 1. Otherwise, the Chaos Rank will remain where it is.
I'll track certain ships' crews, build a star map and slowly build a little RPG universe set during a space war while getting in some good miniatures battles in the meantime. Hurray for Mythic! Despite my initial trepidation I'm falling in love with this system.
No comments:
Post a Comment