Dracula's America.

[mellis1644]

So can you provide any info/hints on the actual game mechanics?

[Manchu]

Why hello there Fenrir.

When it comes to the setting, do people generally know that President Dracula is a vampire? Are vampires pretty common in society, restricted to a class of Dracula's devoted lackeys, or a secret underclass?

[Fenrir]

@Mellis1644: Sure!..

The game is designed for between 2 and 8 individual players at one time.

It uses 6, 8 and 10-sided Dice, which equate to the 'Grit Rank' or skill-level of the models- a Novice uses D6s, while a Hero rolls D10s. In-game Tests are made by rolling a 'pool' of the appropriate Dice, with each roll of 5+ being a Success- situational modifiers (such as for range, clever positioning of your shooters etc) add or subtract Dice from your initial pool.

Each player also has a Deck of ordinary playing cards- each Turn, you will draw a Hand of cards equal to half the models in your Posse, rounded up. These are used to determine the initiative sequence, with higher value cards going first and black cards trumping red cards. Careful management of and planning how to use your cards- as well as your ability to read your opponent!- can make a big difference to the outcome of the Turn!
When you win initiative, you can either Activate one model for two Actions, or two models for one Action apiece. So you have a choice of whether to do more things with fewer models (thus leaving some of your Posse inactive for the Turn), or fewer things with more models...

Hope that was useful- keep 'em coming!
J.

[Fenrir]

@Manchu:
There is a timeline in the book that lays out events leading from 1841 (when Dracula first arrives in America) up to the 'present day' of 1875. Depending when you want to set your games, Dracula's true nature will either be hidden from the general populace (the time leading up to and during the Civil War, which incidentally drags on until 1869) or common knowledge (pretty much 1870 onwards; with the country in such a ruinous state, nobody is in much of a position to do anything about it!)... Vampires will therefore either be covert infiltrators of society at large, or ruthless enforcers backed up by the conscripted/brainwashed Union Army- depending on the period in which you set your games!

As an aside, Vampires in SOTW have a defined 'life-cycle' of sorts- you have the centuries-old, cultured and influential Broodsires (most likely fresh from Europe) who set-up shop in an area and start 'recruiting' a Brood of new Vampires from the local populace. These Fledglings have little control over their animalistic instincts, but over time (and if they survive!) they gradually regain their intellect and become Broodkin- Vampiric 'foot-soldiers' if you will.
There is also a final stage of Vampirism- the eldest of Broodsires eventually find their physical and mental faculties slowly erode to a primal state. These 'Ancients' are hulking, bat-winged monstrosities little more intelligent than a Fledgling, feared and pitied even by their own kind- why Dracula himself has not devolved in this way remains a mystery...

[Davies]

Well, sounds good, better than I expected. Thank you for share new information with us. You are really fuelling the hype here!

The setting is what intrigues me most. At first, the game sounds too much similar to IHMN Gothic, but it seems that a rich setting could give it a new perspective. Different game mechanics also helps...

The only thing I'm going to lament in the setting is the assassination of Lincoln. The Ainsty Casting miniature is shouting to be part of this game. Or could he be used during the war period?

[Fenrir]

Happy to exceed your expectations!  I have no idea whether I'll get another chance to have another set of rules published (though that's the dream!), so SOTW is definitely my 'baby'- I've tried my best to make a fun and interesting game that ticks all my particular boxes as a gamer- hopefully it will find it's way into the hands of like-minded folks!

Narrative is extremely important to me, so I started with the setting first and wrote the game mechanics around that so that everything should work as you'd imagine it (or at least, in my own fevered imagination!)- so vampires can recover damage by drinking the blood of innocent bystanders, Skinwalkers in bear form have a chance of crushing you in a bear-hug, a Chupacabra will skulk towards the closest unconscious model, and a Wendigo becomes frenzied when they scent fresh blood- and so on...
Obviously it wasn't possible to fit all of the background in the book, but if folks are interested I'll post little 'bonus' scraps of lore here as time goes by!

As for poor old Lincoln... Well that Ainsty model is very nice indeed, so feel free to come up with your own Scenarios set during the Civil War- or maybe the ex-President was brought back by a Houngan of the Congregation to carry on the good fight? Perhaps he awoke as a vampire and now seeks revenge on the rest of the undead? Maybe reports of his death were just greatly exaggerated?! I've left many parts of the background intentionally loose, so people can take the ball and run with it down whatever dark alleys they want! 

[dinohunterpoa]

... so vampires can recover damage by drinking the blood of innocent bystanders, Skinwalkers in bear form have a chance of crushing you in a bear-hug, a Chupacabra will skulk towards the closest unconscious model, and a Wendigo becomes frenzied when they scent fresh blood- and so on...

Sounds promising! 

[SotF]

@Manchu:
There is a timeline in the book that lays out events leading from 1841 (when Dracula first arrives in America) up to the 'present day' of 1875. Depending when you want to set your games, Dracula's true nature will either be hidden from the general populace (the time leading up to and during the Civil War, which incidentally drags on until 1869) or common knowledge (pretty much 1870 onwards; with the country in such a ruinous state, nobody is in much of a position to do anything about it!)... Vampires will therefore either be covert infiltrators of society at large, or ruthless enforcers backed up by the conscripted/brainwashed Union Army- depending on the period in which you set your games!

As an aside, Vampires in SOTW have a defined 'life-cycle' of sorts- you have the centuries-old, cultured and influential Broodsires (most likely fresh from Europe) who set-up shop in an area and start 'recruiting' a Brood of new Vampires from the local populace. These Fledglings have little control over their animalistic instincts, but over time (and if they survive!) they gradually regain their intellect and become Broodkin- Vampiric 'foot-soldiers' if you will.
There is also a final stage of Vampirism- the eldest of Broodsires eventually find their physical and mental faculties slowly erode to a primal state. These 'Ancients' are hulking, bat-winged monstrosities little more intelligent than a Fledgling, feared and pitied even by their own kind- why Dracula himself has not devolved in this way remains a mystery...

Kind of curious, but does the Vampire of Washington myth play into it at all?

[Davies]

Skinwalkers in bear form have a chance of crushing you in a bear-hug, a Chupacabra will skulk towards the closest unconscious model, and a Wendigo becomes frenzied when they scent fresh blood- and so on...

Bear-men? Chupacabras? Wendigos? I'm definitively in!!

You wrote about creating our own scenarios. Do you provide some guidelines to create our own characters? Could I use a...let's see... a Navajo vampire hunter war party lead by a bison-man, and create profiles for them? At least for me, this is what I usually search in a game: a rules system robust enough to allow players to customize it without loosing playability.

[Saucy Jack]

If possible could you elaborate on how you put your posse together?

The mix of heroes and henchmen and possible supernatural creatures?

Also could you tells us what a typical posse for each faction would look like in your opinion?

[Fenrir]

@Manchu: You got me there- I'm ashamed to admit that I never came across that particular myth when writing the book, but it sounds like a good fit for SOTW! Care to point me in the right direction?

@Davies: A good question- and one which may be contentious for some folks. SOTW doesn't actually use 'profiles' like other games. Instead, it uses the concept of Grit to determine a model's general skill-level- my reasoning behind this is that the majority of models in the game are humans (or humanoids!). Profiles for Strength, Agility etc existed in an earlier iteration of the game, until I realised that 95% of the time I was just repeating the same stats over and over again! The real customisation comes in the various Skills available- so if you want a sharpshooter-type character you give him Grit D8 or D10 and a rifle, then the Hawkeye and Trick-Shooter Skills (there are 18 Skills in all, summarised in the quick-reference section at the back of the book).

So for your Navajo vampire hunters you could affiliate them to the Skinwalker Tribes Faction, make your Boss a Skinwalker (using the Bear-Form rules to represent his 'Bison-Form'- think of the 'bear-hug' rule as him goring a foe with his horns and/or hooves!) with the Bull-Rush and Tough Skills, back him up with a Shaman with the Warding Circle, Banish and Bless Arcane Powers, and then take some warriors with Silver Bullets (or arrows, if you prefer!) in their ranged weapons!

Of course going all-out and building a Posse of Heroes, all with Grit D10 and tooled-up with the best gear and Skills means you are going to have very few models- this translates to less cards in your Hand each Turn which in turn cuts down on your tactical options during play!
Hopefully you will see that this system is flexible enough to create whatever character you want without sacrificing balance too much, since everybody starts Posse creation on a fairly level playing field and have the same choices available to them when customising models...

[dinohunterpoa]

Do you provide some guidelines to create our own characters? Could I use a...let's see... a Navajo vampire hunter war party lead by a bison-man, and create profiles for them?

Navajo vampire hunters... from the seemingly dead Chaos in Cochise County:



 

[Shookerdo]

I'm not sure if this has been mentioned before or not, but what is the win objective for the game? Is it a straight up skirmish or is the a common goal (like treasure hunting on Frostgrave)?

I already have a lot of ideas for terrian because I think the theme is awesome but I need more game play details to really sell me.

[mweaver]

I kinda like those Chaos in Cochise County miniatures, esp. the one on the left.  Maybe they will see the light of day at some point.

-Michael

[dinohunterpoa]

I kinda like those Chaos in Cochise County miniatures, esp. the one on the left.  Maybe they will see the light of day at some point.

-Michael

Fingers crossed!