"You ate my father - prepare to die!" - planning a skirmish session

[Hobgoblin]

This may be of interest - or perhaps none at all.

I'm planning a skirmish session for the weekend: a six-player Song of Blades game. I've been putting a bit of thought into how to plan the scenario and sides, and have written a few blog posts on it (with more to come). These are really just thinking aloud - but in the process, I've got the six warbands established, along with goals and victory conditions (at least roughly). I'm hoping to finalise it tomorrow or Saturday, before Sunday's game.

The first three posts are here, here and here.

I'd love to hear any thoughts or tips that anyone has for creating a good multiplayer game. At the moment, I've got two sides of three warbands, each of which has slightly competing victory conditions. So while either the 'goodies' or 'baddies' will win, there will be an overall winner among the victors (doubtless to the chagrin of the others). And I've tried to incentivise a bit of double-crossing along the way.

[fred]

Some great ideas. We play quite a lot of multi player games, but we’ve never given slightly competing objectives to the players on each side. I’ll be interested to see how this plays out.

You might want to run some maths on likely VP scores. If the lizards get less VPs for human bodies than dwarf ones, and there are far fewer humans than dwarves, this may be a bit irrelevant.

Also do the VPs need to balance between the sides? Or does the overall game victory count first, then the player VPs?

Overall I really like the ideas, just want to make sure there is a degree of balance so all players feel they are in with a chance.

[Bloggard]

glad you're posting / blogging about this, will be inspiring, although can only admire / envy the fun of multi-player games, and also your wonderful collection of old-school minis and superb paint-jobs on 'em.
Going to be really good to see them in action.

I think a structured approach like this can only pay dividends in terms of an enhanced narrative experience.

[Hobgoblin]

Thanks, both!

You might want to run some maths on likely VP scores. If the lizards get less VPs for human bodies than dwarf ones, and there are far fewer humans than dwarves, this may be a bit irrelevant.

Also do the VPs need to balance between the sides? Or does the overall game victory count first, then the player VPs?

Overall I really like the ideas, just want to make sure there is a degree of balance so all players feel they are in with a chance.

These are really good points - thanks! What I'm planning is to take one warband (probably the dwarfs) and work out its victory conditions, and then mirror those with the others. So, for the dwarfs, it might be something like this:

Drive the orcs from the field: 5
Vargram is killed ... 1 point ... by a dwarf ... 2 points ... by Karak Proudcrest ... 3 points (whichever number applies - not cumulative)
Regain the Arkenstone: 3
Other treasure secured: 1 per item, to a maximum of 4.

So that gives a maximum total of 15 victory points.

For the lizardmen, it might be something like this:
Drive the orcs from the field: 5
Each dwarf killed, if the surviving lizardmen outnumber the surviving dwarfs, to a maximum of 4
At least one human killed: 1
Treasure secured: 1 per item, to a maximum of 5.

Again, that gives a maximum score of 15. I'll probably divide the conditions into "battle points" and "treasure points". The difference will be that you need to have some surviving troops to earn treasure points. In the examples above, driving the orcs from the field earns battle points, as does the killing of Vargram. So the dwarfs are a bit more set up for a heroic narrative in which they might all perish, while the lizardmen need survivors to gain the overall victory.

One potential outcome might be that the orcs loot all the treasure (fleeing off the table with it), but lose the battle. In that scenario, the dwarfs could win outright if Vargram meets his well-deserved end.

I suspect each orc leader will gain a victory point or two by simply surviving the battle - no heroic deaths for them if they can help it!

[Hobgoblin]

One other thing: I'm happy for there to be tied winners, even on opposite sides. So I suspect the orcs will have a higher ratio of treasure points to battle points, meaning that they can do well by fleeing with loot, especially if their rivals have been killed. Fleeing with loot means short moves, though, so there'll still be an incentive to clear the dwarfs and their hirelings from the table (plus maybe 2 or 3 battle points for doing so).

I would be happy with an outcome where (for example) the dwarfs hold the battlefield, kill Vargram and regain the Arkenstone, but Morgrat sees his father die (thus securing his succession), saves his own skin and makes off with a lot of loot.

The reserve warbands - 200-pointers - will have capped maximums (maybe 10 rather than 15), as their main purpose is to keep players in the game. They're going to be along the lines of a leader and five orcs.

[Sunjester]

Sounds like a lot of fun! I'll look forward to seeing the write-up on this game