Requiem - Skirmish Battles in the Post Apocalypse

[Mad Robot]

Hey folks, I hope your weekend has been a good one. I have been developing a post apoc skirmish game over the last year or so and I thought I would seek out some opinions from the Yaktribe. I'll post questions here from time to time looking for your opinions on things, all I ask is that you give your honest answers and input.

So, my first query:

Seems like some skirmish games are incorporating cards into the play system. While the game I am currently working on is all dice based, I am thinking of different ways to approach campaigns and the advancement of characters within a gang or war band. One of those ways is using a card-based system to represent perks and advancements that can be acquired over time.

My question is a very general one. Would adding a card-based system affect your enjoyment of a game? Can it feel like there's too much to do?

 

[Ben_S]

I'm not keen on cards personally, though that's just my £0.02.

 

[Space Truckin]

If cards are just a way of tracking advancements of characters then I feel it would be helpful.

Where I dont like cards is the way GW throws then on top of an existing system without really thinking it through and calling it game balance.

 

[oddball300]

I dunno on the cards myself. If they are done in the vein of warmacine I'm not a fan of that or as others have echoed the way gw has been tossing them out.

But its literally for keeping track of stats and gear and that's it instead of rosters I dunno.

 

[oddball300]

Question @Mad Robot in your system is it hero based in the vein of warmahordes/dust? Or general folks like munda and mordhiem? Cause that would play onto the card thing to as well. Just another thought I had while cooking dinner.

 

[Mad Robot]

@oddball300 more like NC but I do want to add the ability to improve and evolve and that's where the card system could play a part. Also, there are other ways of implementing things besides cards, I just wondered what you guys thought about them as they seem to have become prevalent these days in lots of games.

 

[Sethmerlin666]

I quite like cards as ways to remember different things in games, using them for strategems in 40k is so much easier than remembering lists in the book.

I like the idea of them for advancements. If you were say progressively replacing or adding character stats with use of cards rather than ammending stat sheets.

For it.

 

[ThreeDice]

Great to hear you're developing a rule set, best of luck with it.

I personally really like cards, and they can be a neater system than constantly reworking sheets, also giving flexibility and accessible information. I don't like how they've been implemented in N17, but how you've described seems interesting and decent.

 

[Zeebogie]

Cool that you're developing a ruleset, personally I'm not a fan of cards.

The major downside with cards in my opinion is longevity. One of the great things about Necromunda (ORB, NCE, LRB), Gorkamorka and Mordheim is that theyre all 20 odd years old and you can still just pick up the rules and if you have terrain and a few models and you're right to go 100%. Compare that to 2nd edition 40k which is from the same era and due to it using cards for magic, wargear and half the vehicles having datacards you have to chase down things if you want play it properly with whatever models you may have (on that if anyone knows of a pdf of the cards hit ne up) granted there's the Battle Bible that was made but you still have to chase that down aswell

 

[el_ojo_y_la_sombra]

Good luck with the system!

I am not fan of cards. At least of mandatory cards in a system.
Could be an alternative check profiles or for random choosing in a table. But I prefer having everything in a sheet and a rule book.

On a purely business level I also do not like them. Is another thing to distribute or they are free to download and the player have to print. Is another barrier than just read a book and play.

 

[Punktaku]

yeah, i’m not a fan of cards either. (although i did have a brief affair with Netrunner...) Even the events cards from ORB. I have a set, but as a group, we rarely used them at all.

 

[Ardavion]

I'm not a fan of cards if it is "convention and event only" cards, or "certain circumstance/unit/faction" cards. Keeping track of lots of related things over long periods is also easier with a spreadsheet, or one big piece of paper to write everything down on, rather than tiny cards that potentially duplicate a lot of information for little added benefit or let you have normally grouped information distributed across multiple locations.

Basically, GW's current use of cards is terrible imo, sorry for the rant.

If it's a deck of cards that you shuffle and deal out, say, for injuries or advancements that are the same across anyone, maybe with a faction rule that says "ignore the card that says x and treat it as y", then it makes it fairly uniform across the game and seems quite nice.

As an example, Savage Worlds (a roleplaying system that can use minis heavily, depending on how visual you want to be) uses a standard deck of cards for initiative, but characters can get Edges that allow them to pull two cards and work on the best one, or discard and redraw until they have a 6 or better (combining both Edges makes for a very first-action-in-turn character). It can use the same deck of cards to work out random events, or injuries to a character and so on. It uses a standard deck of cards to reference tables dependent on the circumstance which I really like. If you have the "table result" on the card, then it probably makes it a little easier I guess, as you don't have to refer to a book/piece of paper with the table on, but it shoudln't be a requirement to buy the cards in question.

Basically, if a deck of cards is used functionally as a randomiser, rather than a record keeper or a decisive influencer of events (like fighter/tactics cards) then I'm alright with them.

 

[Mad Robot]

Basically, if a deck of cards is used functionally as a randomiser, rather than a record keeper or a decisive influencer of events (like fighter/tactics cards) then I'm alright with them.

That would really be the reason for using them, the randomness they allow. You can also classify them with, say, colors and then say a certain scenario can only draw from red cards, as opposed to blue for brown. Even that is all a way to add randomness to events, encounters and spoils acquisition. However good charts can do the same thing

 

[Ardavion]

To be honest, my first impression of card decks being used was the Purge arbitrator scenario in the OCE. it scales the cards in use to the number of gangs, and has different suits for different enemies, with higher value cards being higher "value" enemies - I've always been impressed by it.

 

[spafe]

However good charts can do the same thing

Make sure you have 4 charts/option sets, and they have 13 in each

You can also classify them with, say, colors and then say a certain scenario can only draw from red cards, as opposed to blue for brown.

or suits...

I assume you see where this is going. I really enjoy mallifaux and that doesn't use dice at all, everything is card based. Now a mixed system would also be fine, but the key here is that you can use a deck of playing cards in a pinch. There are converisons in the rule book for what suit equals whatever set.

If you want the random, make it accessible and playable with just the rulebook and you are good. Then by all means make custom decks/funky cards that folk can buy, but only as a cool optional extra to the setting, like coloured dice sets, rather than a required key tool for playing the game.

Am very keen to see where this develops to though dude... very very interested.

 

[Mad Robot]

@spafe I was considering the use of custom made cards but a standard playing deck does make more sense. I'm really just weighing peoples opinions of how they like their randomness, dice or cards. I agree with your sentiment, the basic rules are built around a concept we call F&E, fast and easy. I've been combing over all the different rule sets I have to find an approach to fit with the basic rules we have, which are all d6 based.

As for the general game, additional rules modules, things like mounts, psi-powers, campaigns, monstrous creatures, random encounters, etc. will be released quarterly and will always be considered optional. People can add those things to make the game deeper and more interesting or they can keep it fast and easy. Best of all, the game will be free! I am developing the rules and setting mostly to be able to tell cool stories and release a wide variety of models that otherwise might not make sense.

Once they are finished, I'll post a link to download the rules

Thanks for all the input folks

 

[spafe]

Thanks for all the input folks

And thank you good sir for your honest approach and good customer research... soon as it is out I'll be badgering my group to give it a go as we already have a wide range of models, and it means we wouldn't need to commit to entire armies, just teams/small factions of conversions and characters to add to it. perfect gaming sense.

 

[Punktaku]

Kind of like Bombshell and their ruleset? i’m surprised Reaper and Hasslefree haven’t done something similar...

 

[Mad Robot]

The first release of Requiem: Skirmish Battles in the Post Apocalypse is ready for consumption!

Grab a copy, test it out, let me know what you think.

Link for the rules is https://requiem.madrobotminiatures.com/the-rules/

Feel free to look around the website as well. Not much to see quite yet but it will grow as things progress.

 

[Sethmerlin666]

Looks pretty cool mate, i've had a read through, like the idea of how the rules work. I'll have to give it a bash sometime!