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Post by greedo on Jul 6, 2018 5:17:37 GMT
So the game Warmachine by Privateer Press has a fun mechanic.
Each general (in WM, it's a techno-wizard) gets a "feat", that once per game they can activate, and it does something interesting to help their side out. Each general gets a different feat unique to them.
It made me think about could you do that kind of thing in DBA?
i.e. Each army gets a special "feat" that the general can activate ONCE PER GAME (if the general is dead, you don't get to use it!) on their turn.
Some half baked, not tested, ideas: - Polybian Romans can invoke the "rank swap system", and immediately redress their line (i.e. move all Bd and Sp units into line formation) immediately for free!
- Gauls invoke the "screaming horde charge", and all their Wb for that turn get +1 as if they had rear support (does not stack if a Wb already has +1 rear support)!
- Later Carthaginians invoke "Ambush!" in which 3 light troops (Ax, Wb, LH, or Ps) more than 4 BW away from the enemy can immediately be picked up and placed anywhere on the table in cover 4 BW away from the enemy facing any direction!
- Marian Romans could invoke something "For Caesar!" that helps them face ambushes!
- Ancient British could invoke something something "Boudica!" that helps their chariots!
- EAP could "Make them fight in the shade" and fire their Bw units twice each in one turn!
- etc. etc.
You get the idea. Obviously this is not tournament friendly because it would require one hellava lot of balancing and testing (as Warmachine's Feats do too!).
Chris
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Post by davidjconstable on Jul 6, 2018 7:03:03 GMT
DBA was designed to be a simple game, over the years this has been forgotten, if you want complications then go to DBMM or "house rules",
but keep DBA simple.
If anything look at it and say "how can I simplify this".
We know far to little about fighting methods and motivation in ancient times, probably 1400AD and earlier, and in a lot of cases nothing at all really.
David Constable
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Post by greedo on Jul 6, 2018 17:00:37 GMT
DBA was designed to be a simple game, over the years this has been forgotten, if you want complications then go to DBMM or "house rules", but keep DBA simple. If anything look at it and say "how can I simplify this". We know far to little about fighting methods and motivation in ancient times, probably 1400AD and earlier, and in a lot of cases nothing at all really. David Constable As the character Tommy said in the movie Snatch: "Who took the hole out of your donut then?" The reason I don't play DBMM is that it is, in a word: unreadable. I tried to read it several times, and couldn't figure it out (and I've read DBA and understand it so got the basic basic concepts + the huge Unofficial Guide that DBA 2.1 needed).
So yes DBMM is intended to be a more complicated version, but it's also not very playable. There are some themes in there that people like me are suggesting porting over to DBA (like element grades) because they are fairly easy to port over without having to actually try to play DBMM. DBA on the other hand is so simple as you point out, that there all sort of levers and mechanisms that can be added in easily, and tested, without too much fuss. Even big DBM scale games of BBDBA can be played with almost exactly the same ruleset. I LOVE IT. Of course, in the tournament scene you play with the official rules. But this is the house rules section of the forum. Hopefully a place for people to spitball random ideas that might prove fun for both players, and bounce them off each other. None of this is a criticism of DBA as a game. And if you play DBMM, then that is great. I however, cannot. There are House Rules and DBA forum posts that ARE intended to be brought up to Phil if he ever decides to update the rules (the 4Ax and 8Bw discussions for example), but I'm just brainstorming a bit with my stupid ideas, and thought someone would see something interesting. |
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hdan
Munifex
Posts: 35 
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Post by hdan on Jul 7, 2018 15:36:11 GMT
That's a fun idea. It maybe is more HOTT than DBA in character, but for players (like me) who are more interested in "flavor" battles than recreating history, but who also don't want to jettison all historical pretenses, it could be a fun option. I particularly like your PunicWars feat set. Very nice. But I think it would be hard to balance out. Probably working out a list of X "stratagems", and then parceling them out (or letting the player choose) would be a good idea. And if one stratagem is always the one people choose, then that's a good sign that it's too powerful.  |
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Post by greedo on Jul 8, 2018 19:39:29 GMT
Yeah definitely on the Gamey side of things as opposed to historical anything but still fun flavor.
Incidentally what are the strategims? I know that was a thing in DBMM but don’t know what they are explicitly
Chris
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Post by medievalthomas on Jul 9, 2018 17:04:37 GMT
DBMM has this stuff but like most DBMM stuff its a pain in the butt. Hence folks are soured on the concept. But DBMM soured the whole world on DBX until DBA 3.0 proved you could have most of the dBMM improvements but in a much simpler format.
So we press on. We give generals personalities (because they had them). Calculating: always get 4 PIPs (+/- 1) but no bonus in combat, Heroic get +2 in Combat and always Pursues but count as "no general" if in contact with foe in command step, Trickster(can make opponent reroll PIP die but no bonus in combat.
TomT
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