LOTOW: An ongoin' expansion for huntin' (lots of text)

[Christian]

Hullo there.

I have been making some additions to the fruitful material already in LOTOW and the expansions. Having purchased a big ol' pack of Mountain Men from Foundry not long ago (seems most've been discontinued?) I thought I'd have a crack at making some rules to go along with them. Using LOTOW as a base, I have a few ideas that I want to share and, with some input from the community, grow them into something I can put out as a complete document.

So, here is what I've got so far... please note that most of this requires a lot more work. All feedback would be really appreciated.

These rules are only really applicable in the Huntin' Scenario. This can be played with two or more players, or even solo. You may need to have several Mountain Men prepared to make a hunting party, but I would like to make it possible to play with just one character.

At the beginning of the game, a nominated player must roll a scatter/directional dice for wind direction. This doesn't have much of an effect until later in the gae (you will see later on). This arrow is the predominant wind direction for the rest of the game, but can change.

Weather types are also generated at the beginning of the game, comprising: clear day, light rain, heavy rain, snow. It can be day time or night time.

On each player's turn - but after rolling for priority - a D6 is rolled. If a 1 is rolled, player must consult the following table for the outcome:
- Caught in a bear trap (ouch!)
- Ambush 1: D6 bullets/arrows come flying out of the trees.
- Ambush 2: D6 opponents appear (indians or unfriendly trappers)
- Change in the weather
- Change in the wind
- Disorientation (player misses a turn)

A major part of setting up the Huntin' scenario is the placing of "track" counters on the gaming table. These are small objective counters representing paw/hoof prints, snapped twigs, poop, or perhaps the remains of last night's dinner guest. The main objective for the hunters is to "capture" these counters and accumulate points.

Once collected, the player rolls a D6: on a 1, the hunter loses the track and must begin again; on a 2-5 the hunter collects a point and moves on; on a 6, the hunter is ambushed by a beast (probably a bear or something nasty).

Once these points reach a designated goal (5, f'rinstance) the tracked beast is spawned in a random direction. If the line drawn by the direction of the wind cross the path of the hunter and the beast, the beast is aware of the hunter and may dash off (if it is a deer or something) or gain a charge action and attack the hunters.

I am working on a set of Huntin' Skills for players to develop their hunters in a campaign.

I've also put together some simple stats for a Grizzly Bear (basically a watered-down cave troll):

F = 5, S = 5, G = 5, A = 2, W = 3, P = 4
Fearsome Reputation: Players must pass a Guts test before charging.

I'd like to hear what you folks think 

[Anatoli]

Sounds really complex but I also really like the idea. What you should do is to come up with "trapper skills" that the characters can gain over a course of scenarios to make them a bit more efficient at tracking or reducing the chance of getting ambushed 

[bennyj]

great stuff, i really like the idea of following the trail and that generating the 'prey' - also you can't go wrong with bears!!  i should be finished painting my own mountain men today so i might try a solo game using these rules on monday/tuesday.

[Christian]

That would be great. Let me know if it works!

[bennyj]

will do - and cheers again for posting.

[Christian]

Having a bit of a look around, I found this useful glossary of terms used by Mountain Men:
http://www.xmission.com/~drudy/amm/gloss.html

Also had some throughts on Huntin' Skills along the lines of:

"Preferred Prey" - hunter can nominate one species to gain bonusses against
Trapper - set traps in the game, also disarm any that have have been encountered as per the random roll in the first post

I also wanted to add a default skill for using with any Posse, not just Mountain Men. The Skill "Plug a Plew" allows you to add a D3 to the treasure roll at the end of the game to account for any Beaver traps left out and collected between games.

[bennyj]

a couple of ideas:

use the scatter template from Bloodbowl for wind direction, additional use the other scatter template from BB for the way the animal moves - being less 'random' it can be directed away from the 'threat' (e.g approaching mountain man) but still has an element of chance as to exactly which way the prey will move - could get quite interesting if on mountain man positions himself in front of the tracker letting himself get a shot at the prey as the tracker locates it and beats the bushes driving it forwards.

again from bloodbowl the weather table could be of some use - keep the weather and simply change the effect (e.g in a blizzard it is harder to read sign and slows the mountain man down).

i'll try and get the solo game in tonight and post thoughts.