Bloodbeards - Guilders: A Life In Shadows - Development blog

[Bloodbeard]

Hello Lead Adventurers. I'm working on writing a fantasy skirmish tabletop RPG with miniatures.


Guilders - A Life In Shadows

Some of you have probably seens Laus excellent words on the project, over on his blog. Cheers for the great input, been lurking on it as well. Gonna try and post some stuff on the project here as well. In this first post, I'll drop a few links and a description of the project.

Links:
The current rules, tokens, sheets etc: Google Drive
My hobby Blogspot: All my hobby including Guilders.
Discord: The Bloodbeard's Garage Discord, lots of cool people and my primary SoMe.
Hashtags: #Guilders #ALifeInShadows

The Motivation
Lau and I have been playing all manner of skirmish games for years: Frostgrave, Ghost Archipelago, Last Days, Reality's Edge, This Is Not A Test etc etc. But all of them have been missing something.

I have fond memories of the Warhammer Quest RPG source book, some broken stuff in there. But the d66 tables were amazing. I've played a lot of RPGs before, and I was missing some of that in my miniature gaming.

So we wanted a game with more RPG elements, a living scene (not just a battlefield and mindless monster) and not strictly PVP. THat's the motivation for writing Guilders - A Life In Shadows.

Status
Currently Guilders is in version 1.42 beta. The base rules are all there and have been tested a bunch. Most of the scenarios are there and so is the base campaign system.
Missing: A few scenarios and RPG d100 tables for after game exploration, a bit of loot options. Extensive solo play testing (want the game to work solo, the framework is there).
To be done: Testing, long testing of the campaign. Does it get boring or broken? Does the economy work? If the injuries to little or too much? Balance in the long terms. Solo testing.

What is Guilders - A Life In Shadows then?
Guilders – A Life In Shadows is a tabletop roleplaying miniatures game, about thief guilds played with 28mm-32mm scale miniatures. You play as the Master of a Guild made from all manner of thieves, thugs, scallywags, and troublemakers. The goal of your guild is to rise in power, fame and wealth – make your name and rival the powerful Old Guilds.

Guilders – A Life in Shadows is designed to tell the stories of your guild. Through the games, your Guild will grow, get new members, experience, and become bolder on their Heists. You might become infamous and hunted - or famed as a benefactor of the poor and scourge of the rich.

Guilders is a game of changing missions and objectives. Each game will be unique in its requirements to suit the grander narrative of your very own Guild forming and expanding. Nevertheless, there are some basic requirements for gameplay, necessary to get started with living your life in the shadows.

The game is miniature agnostic, set in a losely defined fantasy setting - you frame The City to fit your vision.

A few photos
Right, what do it look like. Gonna post a few photos of the board and the miniatures. And will post further down the line.

My playtest guild: The Eastwall Cornerclub Clubbers


The Town Watch giving honest thieves a hard time.


The City - where dreams are made

[Bloodbeard]

Guilders is pretty loosely defined. It's fantasy, there's magic. But it's all pretty low. The magicians a guild can field is Charlatans using Hedge Magic. Real mages are not in thief guilds. Classic fantasy races are not confirmed in writing - that's really up to the players.

There is however some written setting giving an idea of the Guilds, The World and The City.

The Setting
The World
The World is a place of politics, kingdoms, riches, struggle, and magic. Borders change through wars, and economies collapse with the death of kings. But in The World, you cannot talk about power and politics without mentioning The Guilds. The Old Guilds are powerful cabals with influence across borders and within many different royal courts.

The oldest Guilds are hundreds, if not thousands of years old. The Guild of Masons – controlling stone works, quarries and the time it takes to build fortifications. The Guild of Iron, smiths, and miners – winning wars through years of preparation with bad iron exports to foreign forges. The Guild of Oars (said to be older than the invention of sails) controlling ports, trade, and “unfortunate unpredicted storms.” The Guilds are the true puppet masters and oldest powers in The World.

The City
There are many great cites in The World, huge metropolises, wonders of The World. Hundreds if not thousands of years has passed since their founding. From the outskirt slums to the inner-city noble districts, you can pass multiple ring walls and gates. It is in such a metropolis, The City that most guilds are founded. Here is the room to grow, to migrate, to burn bridges and still find fresh allies and victims. Some will live their entire life without leaving The City, or ever having ventured into all parts of it. The City has plenty of space and riches, for those cunning enough to find and take it.

Coins, Gold, Guilders
Such is the power of some guilds that they have their own coin, papers of value, or tokens of debt – collectively known as Guilders. The word and debt of a politician might not last and exchange rates across borders are ludicrous. Guilders however will work anywhere a large guild is represented. It is a matter of both pride and power. Guilds happily exchange Guilders from other places – getting them off the market and adding their own. A lot can be learned of your enemy through their economic visibility.

The Gangs, the Crime – the Guilders
A gang, a warband, a clique – all words for the groups starting out. The lowest of the low. Many crews work as enforcers and runners for an Old Guild. No Old Guilds are genuiely under the law or morals of Kings – not if they are powerful enough. Truth be told though; the Old Guilds are just thugs in a fancier dress to some people.

Any gang boss with dreams of the big leagues, fame, and stories – will form a Guild and become a Guild Master. A Guild is a gang with aspirations of greatness and a ganger living in a Guild, paid with Guilders – is also a Guilder.

A Guilder is both a name for a coin and a name for a ganger with a cause.
However, Old Guilds do not share power, and Kings enforce their law. A noose is a noose. It, does not matter if it is bound by the Merchant Guild or the Kings Guard.
To form a new Guild is hard work, risky business; it is, a life in shadows for many years. For most, it starts and ends in those shadows. For the few, it leads to Legends. Welcome to Guilders – A Life In Shadows.

[Bloodbeard]

Climbing, acrobatics - Assassins Creed style

Part of what I really wanted with Guilders is making a reason to climb all the good terrain. So many games really limit climbing (half movement for example) - giving no reason to actually climb it.

So in Guilders you can climb you normal movement, jump your normal movement value and fall your agility skill in distance. If going the route for shooting characters there's nice bonuses for being up high. And plenty of scenarios have their objectives somewhere above street level.

Guards will mostly stay on ground level, only climbing when there's no other targets available. The Guilders can also exit the board from roof tops, even if the simply jump off the board. It's assumed there's a proper rooftop to land on out of the board.

Anyways, for the game I really needed a good big fantasy city. I'm going for a Baldurs Gate kind of look with mine. Bought a ton of ww2 TTCombat buildings in MDF, planning on upgarding the look on all of them, to look like fantasy buildings.

All buildings will also have some walk way added underneath the roofs, so there's a good many places for climbing. Also added a ton of extra balconies from cheap Streets of Venice kit.

[Sunjester]

That's looking really great!

[snitcythedog]

I have not looked through the posts about Guilders until tonight and I have to say I am impressed.  I have been tinkering about with a similar idea but as a one off scenario and not gone anywhere with it.  You seem to have developed the concept much further than I would normally (I tend to host one shot games not campaigns).  From what I can see it looks like a very slick well thought out system. 

I have some questions about crowds.  Are you limiting the number of them to speed up game play, to limit the number of loot markers available or both?  Have you tried playing with more crowds and if so how did that work?  The reason that I am asking is that I am almost finished with my medieval and fantasy villagers and have 24 bases of between two and seven civilians available so I can blanket a fairly large portion of the board. 

I had worked out mechanics for players to randomly move a number of bases a limited distance at the end of each activation to take some of the "mechanical" load (repetitive dice rolling and movement) out of moving large numbers of crowd bases while still getting the "feel" of people milling about.  I had not thought about allowing the thieves interact with and join crowd bases and that sounds like it will be much more fun on the table. 

Thank you for putting your rules out there.

[Bloodbeard]

The full rules for crowds can be found in the rules on p. 15 and p. 28: LINK 1.42 beta

Cheers Sunjester! Thanks for the questions Snitcythedog, I'll drop some answers about crowds below.

Loot
The entire board in Guilders have Loot. All buildings, civillians and crowds have a Loot I token - this is petty cash mostly. If a thief steals a Loot I, they will be able to cover their upkeep and perhaps put a small item or few coins in the guild treasury.

Buildings with Loot I need to be lockpicked (a skill availble at start for thieves) or smashed (will cause alarm and bring guards).

Then there's Loot II and Loot III which will bring in a lot of extra cash and items for the guild.

Crowds (NPCs)
Crowds are a 3" round base with miniatures (I use three on mine). The standard scenarios have 4 crowds (two placed by each player) and some single civilians. A crowd has a single Loot I token.

Crowds can be pickpockted or knocked down (one is stealthy the other will cause alarm and bring in the guards).

Crowds (and single civilians) move randomly at the end of each turn. In Reality's Edge (cyberpunk game) the crowds moved very little and often got into a 'bump' situation. Hit terrain, move rest of movement the other way.

In Guilders crowds move d10" in a random direction. They don't bump into stuff, but move around it continuing in the direction rolled. So they won't end up static.

Guilders can move into crowds (hide from guards), covered from shooting and will then move with the crowd when they move. So it's a good way for a thief to stay on target (free moving) more actions for trying to pick their pockets.

It really is quite fast moving all the civilians. Roll d10, use the top as direction, move crowd.

A concept in the game is Overall Alertness. The more Alarm the guidlers cause, the tougher and more guards will enter the board. When Overall Alertness gets to 15 (the guards are hostile at this point) the crowds and civilians will stop moving randomly. They will then move directly towards the nearest board edge instead (running for their lives, as there is obviously a lot going on in this part of town). Guilders can still be inside a crowd base - it's a good way to escape the board.

Number of civilians
So in a standard game of Guilders, you will need 4 crowd bases (12 models if putting 3 on each) and 4 single civilians - so a total of 16 civillian models. Nothing stopping you from making a crowd with a herd of sheep, a crowd being a small wagon etc. Important part is that it's a 3" round base really.

Crowd bases
I'll drop a post about making crowd bases later. Made with cardboard and xps foam. But here's a quick shot of one before painting. Made with small holes for the civilians, so they wont fall off.

[Bloggard]

yep, as with Lau's thread:

fantastic approach - really enjoying seeing this develop.

[Bloodbeard]

yep, as with Lau's thread:

fantastic approach - really enjoying seeing this develop.

Cheers a lot Bloggard.

The Guild and Guildmaster
Guilders is about telling the story of your Guildmaster and his Guild. A guildmaster can be anyone - but is always someone wanting power and influence. A rich kid buying friends, a business man needing stuff done, a ganger wanting a bit more style. That is completely up to you. All guilds start with a free guildmaster than can be tweaked to your liking. You get to choose two skills, three skill groups (for levelling up) and distribute 6 attribute points. So the character can be tweaked to your liking.
There's plenty of opportunity to build a magician, support character, master thief, violent brute.

Up to you.

I'll show some pictures of all my guilders in this post. But there's a ton more on my blogger, so go check that out.

I've build myself a jack-of-all-trades, master of none guy. Starting him with Scout (free move at the start of game), Doctor (help injured guys after the game) and Alchemy (make some free potions). Mr. Fairweather I call him.

He's surronded by his Enforcer - an expensive character. Special that it has 2 wounds (only the guild master has that as well). Made mine as a melee fighting killer.

Lastly is a Shadow Priest. It's also an expensive character, but can use prayers of shadow. Small tricks that helps out thieves. My Priest started with a prayer to force silence on a character (smart before knocking someone out or smashing a door). Shadow Priest can also do a job in a special guild hall upgrade - the temple. A late campaign upgrade.

Two Dunkeldorf Miniatures and one LotR GW.


Scum and street urchin.
These are some very cheap, bad stat characters. Scums don't start with any skills and have low stats. But they are cheap and cheap in upkeep. I use mine to simply smash doors and make noise - distraction for the guards. I don't care if he's captured. If i makes it out with loot - awesome.

Street Urchin are equally cheap. The can pick pocket - but it's a 50:50 change. They're also weak and will never win a fight. The pro to urchin is that guard ignores them - until they are carrying stolen goods. So even when guards go hostile and start beating all guilders, Street Urchin can stay safe and get some late game loot. Very smart if there's something with high value.

In a campaign, if you hit bad luck and everybody is in jail or bedridden, scum and street urching can fill your roster for free (up to 10 models). So you'll always be able to field a team for a game. Then after the heist you can permanently bring them on or simply quick them.

Two Reaper metal kids and unknown 3d print scum.


Thieves are important characters. They're not expensive or cheap. Middle ground in terms of price. But they start with either Lockpick or Pickpocket skills - which is important in a thief game. I've been using their first level to make sure they have the other skill as well. Their job is mostly to grab Loot I tokens, get some small items and income.

Ramshackle Games (sculpted by Andres Steeldragon) and two Fantasy Series 1 Blacklist tieves.


Lastly in my crew I have some shooting abilities. I've given a hand crossbow to an Acrobat. The Acrobat start with skills for better jumping and climbing and is very fast. Very good character to get height advantage and find loot in high places.

And I have a sharpshooter, an expensive but good ranged expert. The sharpshooter start with the sniper skill, making shots more deadly if fired when Hiding in Shadows.




We've been really trying to make different character types and wanting all characters to have a good reason to be in a guild. Either with direct effect in the boardgame Heist part or when doing the off-game events.

Links:
The current rules, tokens, sheets etc: Google Drive
My hobby Blogspot: All my hobby including Guilders.
Discord: The Bloodbeard's Garage Discord, lots of cool people and my primary SoMe.
Hashtags: #Guilders #ALifeInShadows

[A.K.Summers]

Tried the Beta at this year's Horisont Con in Odense. Very engaging, fun and a great setting. Also an excuse to build a whole medieval city Look forward to see how it ends up

[Bloodbeard]

Town Watch and Guards of the city
A key concept in Guilders is the AI controlled guards of the city. There's three different tiers of these. As the Overall Alertness rise during the game (when making noise illigal things), guard numbers will increase and tougher guards will appear.

Whenever players have both moved a character, there's an increasing chance the the guards will take their turn - so you never know when the guards act. That  way you can't play around them, it makes for a better AI.

Guards follow a flow chart on how they react. In the beginning of the game they're not hostile (unless seeing fighting), when the guilds have made sufficiently much trouble they become hostile towards all player characters.

Characters in Guilders normally have 360 vision, but all guards wear helmets. That limits them to a 180 front arch view. An important thing for the AI, so you can sneak behind guards and better hide from them.

If a Guilder (during campaign play) becomes infamous the guard will be hostile towards them from the start.

This system have taken a lot of tweaking after playtesting, because all situation should be covered by the flow chart. In the last 5 games, the sheet have not been changed - so that's nice.

Town Watch: Local militia types. These are light armore, non lethal town watch. They're armed with clubs and staffs. If players end up fighting these guys, they're not lethal. If knocked out by these town watch the player character rolls on a special 'injury table' and might end up with fines or in jail.

If the players are quite enough, they could play through an entire game and never get to fighting the tougher guards.

I've build these miniatures from a mix of Oathmark (North Star) and Perry Miniatures - and made clubs / staff from all manner of bits. I've chosen open helmet heads for these, painted them with only leather armor and lots of clothes. This way they are easy to make out compared to the higher tier troops. 









SoMe
If you're interested in Guilders, wanna check out the rules or hang out, check some links in the first post . I use Discord a lot, lots of good people in there.

[Bloodbeard]

Interior and playing inside
All my different buildings are made with inside playability. But from other skirmish games we've found out, that we rarely play inside anyways. Guilders mostly take place outside (play inside if you want, but it well slow down the game).

So buildings are essentially big treasure chests containing loot.

There is however one scenario that calles 'Tavern Brawl'. Here the guilds are trying to steal keys from nobles, to rob their stuff inside the tavern. So I decided to do some interior terrain for a tavern. A lot of this will also work as regular scatter around the city.

In Guilders you can't steal everything, loot markers are placed on setup. But it does add something to the game, placing those loot tokens on appropriate areas. Like placing some Loot on a bar counter.

The bits I've painted are from all over the place. Dungeon Saga, Terrain Crate, Anvil Industries, Dunkeldorf, Renedra and som smaller companies I don't recall.















Guilders is a 28mm skirmish game about thief guilds. It's currently in open beta and nearly done. You are more than welcome to check it out. You can find links for all the rules, tokens and other SoMe communities on my blog. HERE.

[Bloodbeard]

In Guilders: A Life In Shadows the guards will get better and more dangerous as the criminal guilds cause Alarm during the game. First is the Town Watch, simple local militia armed with batons and staffs.

When the Overall Alertness (the stacked Alarm from during the game) reaches 10, better guards will start to spawn onto the playing area. These are City Guard, actual trained soldiers from the barracks. These are armed with real weapons and good armor.

With stats as good as most Guilders and better armor, they are a bad thing to fight. And if a guilder is taken out of action, from a City Guard they roll on the injury table after the game. That adds a risk of stat decreases, long times bedridden or even death.

Fighting Town Watch will only leave them in jail and fined.

The Miniatures

While waiting on the excellent city guard from Dungeons and Lasers, I've kit bashed my own. Making them distinct from town watch I've used bodies with metal armor. Perry Miniatures and some old Warhammer bits.

For their bracers I've gone with metal instead of leather colors. And for helmets I've been using Perry and Bretonnian bits, for a cooler look (compared to the simply skull caps of the townwatch).

Half the city guard have been armed with swords and Oathmark shields. The other half I've armed with halberds, for that classic guard look.

The plan is (in time) to add even more guards, enough for actual Oathmark regiments.

[Reed]

The guys that get into action once the sh*t hits the fan.

[Bloodbeard]

The guys that get into action once the sh*t hits the fan.

Gets even worse when the Royal Guards are send in at the end. That's real trouble!

[Bloodbeard]

The new version of Guilders - A Life In Shadows is now up for download.

In the 1.43 version there's several changes as a result of extensive playtesting.

The rules for jumping has been tweaked - you could jump unrealisticly long before. The new rules are better and still reward high agility and acrobatic stats.

Most of the changes are in the campaign system though.

Injuries: These have been tweaked a bit. And you now need to buy medicine on the market to help bedridden guilders. Guilders who suffered a serious injury can't do jobs.

Jail and Bail: Now it needs to be paid at the Bailiff.

Both these require guilders to do it as a 'job' in the after game play. We found after playtesting that too many guilders could do jobs, leaving a lot of them to take the 'roam the city' job. That would burn through the encounters too fast.

Now it's much more balanced. If your guilders had a bad heist, they can also choose to go begging for coin.

Overall the game is finished now. There's 10 very different scenarios included and a long campaign. I still need to add more Roam The City entries (I want 100) and a bunch of Loot II is still missing.

Then it's on to playtesting a long pure solo campaign. The game should work playing solo. But it will probably need tweaking to be really interesting.