Campaign Frame Thoughts

Currently the campaign ends when the stability of either the Stronghold or the Empire drops down to zero. There's also a way for the Stronghold to end the campaign by assassinating the Autarch. I had in mind that there would be some sort of attack by the Autarch afterward.

Ultimately, what I'm interested in is a session that feels like a true finale. Thus, basing the whole campaign around stability may not be the best approach. It makes stability very important in terms of winning, but if it directly impacts how easy it is to win a mission, then the win condition and the resource needed for success are tied together, which isn't a great design choice.

Thinking about the mission types and how they might function in winning, there are:

Stronghold Victory Paths

Warfare - Attacking the Empire's capital wins the game for the Stronghold. This seems like a suitable finale for the campaign. It's really hard to do (capitals can be defended with more units, and the Autarch has a castle there). It will probably happen suitably far in, so the Autarch would be featured in the defense of the capital.

Infiltration - Assassinating the Autarch is another way to win. This is a difficult mission as well. It doesn't feel quite as nice of a resolution, because the Autarch wouldn't be able to defend directly as easily. However, it's so difficult, that it would be something that also would tend to happen far into the campaign.

Autarch Victory Paths

Warfare - Similar to the Stronghold, the Empire can win by attacking the Stronghold's capital. For all the reasons it's difficult for the Stronghold, it's difficult for the Empire.

Skirmish? - The Empire uses Skirmish instead of Infiltration to assassinate heroes. Unlike for the Autarch, though, a hero could get assassinated and the campaign could continue on. Of course, if enough heroes get assassinated, it's functionally over.

Wrath of the Autarch - Alternatively, maybe, at some particularly late stage of the campaign, the Autarch player could force the issue, and start a mission for all of the marbles. If the heroes fail, the Stronghold gets nuked by some sort of powerful magic. This is basically the "Arkham Horror" way to end the campaign.

Support Paths

Diplomacy - In this case, diplomacy doesn't become a primary strategy. It's still very useful, basically essential, in terms of trading goods and building developments, but it's not a primary way to victory.

Skirmish - Skirmish is important, as it's a way to get neutral regions, and many quests use Skirmish. It also would be important for defense if there is some sort of Wrath of the Autarch mission that ends the campaign. In that case, building toward that end point could be a way to win for the Stronghold.

Uses for Stability

If stability is no longer the primary mode for victory, it could play a bigger role in terms of impact on missions. It would also be okay if it swung around more.

Thematically, it also felt a little weird - both the Autarch and the Stronghold basically lose stability over the course of the campaign. It seems like the support of the people should be independent of victory.

I'm not sure what role stability should have, then? It seems like making missions easier or harder is probably a good place for it.

Some options:

• Starting Fate Points - Starting fate points might be an option. If it's lower/higher each side starts with more or less fate points.
• Resources - I'm hesitant to have stability affect resource dice. If it does, it can cause a downward spiral that is impossible to recover from. It also would hit the Stronghold far more than the Autarch, because the Autarch doesn't use resources.
• Campaign Aspects - It's always an option to make new aspects in relation to stability swings.
• Mission Difficulty - If a mission takes place at a faction, the difficulty could be modified by the stability of the faction. This is a really powerful

Summary

I'll have to think about how stability would be used, but I do like having the campaign end in only one of these few ways. I also do like a "Wrath of the Autarch" timer, which basically can trigger if the campaign goes on to long. It's a for good or worse, this is the end, sort of event, which could be good to have.

Streamlining Mission Types and Factions

Even though I've been conscious of trying to minimize complexity while designing Wrath of the Autarch, I haven't really hesitated to throw in everything and the kitchen sink in order to get it to work.

I'm currently in a contraction phase, brought about by seeing trends during playtesting. I've thought of a number of areas which could be streamlined without losing much, if anything, in terms of strategy or interesting choices.

• Trade Missions / Trade Tracking
• Setting up particular trades (X ore for Y timber, etc) and then tracking them is pretty fiddly and not all that interesting
• Instead, Trade Missions (which may need to be renamed Gain Support or something like that) should just increase disposition with the target faction
• Each season, trade is optionally done with factions based on what their disposition to the Stronghold is
• This is a little more fiddly than what I currently have, since the Stronghold players have to decide if they want to trade. Usually the answer will be yes, so hopefully it's not that fiddly
• Because of this, only the disposition with the factions would need to be tracked, not specific trades
• It also makes the Gain Support (previously Trade) missions make more sense. All the fiddliness of setting up a trade, and determining difficulty is gone. It also will make more narrative sense, putting the focus squarely on gaining support for the Stronghold, with most of the issues revolving around the conflict between the Autarch and the Stronghold
• Factions and Developments
• I constructed most of the factions similarly to the Stronghold, with regions, developments, units, stability, population, etc
• I don't think the factions really need development listings
• Instead, they should just have stats based on how difficulty various types of conflicts are
• Ex. Skirmish 4, Infiltration 3, Warfare 6, Diplomacy 5
• Infiltration Missions
• There are three infiltration missions: Espionage, Sabotage, and Assassination
• Each of these mission types has various options for them
• Many of these options relate to the developments each faction has
• These should probably be streamlined, to focus their intention
• Sabotage: Lower the target faction's stability (that's it)
• Espionage: Make it easier to build a development (each one of the five factions will have one of the five tech trees they're good at)
• Assassination: Kill a leader (that includes the Autarch)
• All of the other various options are scrapped (and worse, the need to not only know what mission type to do, but figure out if faction X has development Y)
• Assassination missions aren't all the useful right now, so the leaders for each faction need to have decent role in what makes the faction good at tasks - killing a leader nerfs the faction's effectiveness
• Resources

• At some point, I need to go through the neutral regions that can be found with exploration, and really make them specialized (as in, good at providing a particular type of resource)
• Right now, many of them are sort of a mush
• I also need to go through, and make sure all the resource numbers are as low as possible
• Some resource amounts were sort of arbitrarily inflated (like timber) in order to create various trade charts. Not sure what I was thinking there - but all the numbers should really be as low as possible to keep the math simpler and make it easier to form strategies

What is Wrath of the Autarch?

Bandits are stealing your grain, a border dispute has ignited with Crescent Hold, and the peasants are uprising ever since your guard accidentally murdered an innocent. Amidst all of this, the Autarch's spies are everywhere... it is only a matter of time before they launch a full scale assault. There aren't enough resources to deal with all of these threats, but what gets ignored?

Wrath of the Autarch is a kingdom building role-playing game. The beta rules are complete and freely available here: Beta Rules

I'd love to hear from you! Please post your thoughts in the WotA G+ community: G+ Community or the WotA rpggeek community: WotA on RPGGeek

Wrath of the Autarch features:

• Domain Management
• WotA owes its inspiration from 4X video games, and role-playing games like Birthright, Houses of the Blooded, and Pendragon
• The main character in WotA is the Stronghold, a society the players grow over a number of seasons
• The Stronghold controls regions, large areas of land that can be used to gain valuable resources
• Troupe Style Play
• There are a limited number of available heroes for the Stronghold. These heroes are leaders and skilled characters capable of accomplishing important missions
• Each session of play highlights one season of time, focusing on one important mission for the Stronghold
• The players choose which heroes to play based on the type of mission they elect to undertake
• GMless
• WotA is a set of rules written for a specific campaign included with the game
• The Empire of the Autarch is a powerful kingdom bent on the Stronghold's destruction
• One player takes on the responsibilities for managing the Autarch, while the other players all manage the Stronghold
• The Autarch player allocates points to various threat pools over the course of the campaign, which lets them inflict miseries upon the Stronghold
• There is a strategic interaction between the missions the Stronghold takes as seasons go by and the threats the Autarch wields against them
• Campaign Frame
• There are five different minor factions present in the world, each with different goods and services they're willing to trade for, as well as different capabilities they possess
• Allying with compatible factions is a key part of the strategy for the Stronghold
• The Autarch may sabotage relationships with minor factions using threats
• The factions and the world they inhabit is not fleshed out in detail, giving players a framework to use, but plenty of mechanisms to make it personal and unique
• Structured Missions
• Each season the heroes from the Stronghold go on one mission
• The mission choices are alliance, conquest, assassination, sabotage, or dealing with a looming threat
• Missions consist of a challenge phase and a conflict phase
• Challenge Phase
• The challenge phase is open and flowing, with all the players contributing to the unfolding narrative
• There is a constant time pressure to succeed at the challenges for the Stronghold players
• The Deck of Fate is used to help spur creativity and create challenge scenes
• Conflict Phase
• WotA employs four types of conflicts: diplomacy, infiltration, skirmish, and warfare
• The type of conflict used depends on the mission
• Conflicts use similar action types, but each have their own flavor and tactical options
• Based on Fate Core
• WotA is based on the Fate Core rules, and uses the same four core actions, as well as the familiar skill ladder, stunts, and aspects
• Instead of one type of aspect, there are three, based on their duration: minor advantages, mission aspects, and campaign aspects
• The longer the duration of the aspect, the more important it is, and the harder it is to create
• WotA heavily uses the Deck of Fate (although Fate Dice may be used instead)
• Stunts, developments, and other effects modify how the cards are used
• Stress for success is an option to succeed with cost for any action type: allowing a player to increase their result by drawing cards and applying the suns as physical stress and the moons as mental stress
• A unique relationship mechanic is used that rewards both helpful and hindering relationships
• There is a special system called "aspect burning" which lets players convert free invokes on campaign aspects into other in game effects (units, familiars, allies, advantages in conflicts)

I've tried to provide an overview of the key features that distinguish Wrath of the Autarch from other role-playing games. If it sounds interesting to you, feel free to look over the rules and comment!

WotA, Fate, and Step Dice

I've posted about alternatives to Fate dice before, and it's an idea I keep coming back to as I work on Wrath of the Autarch. Mainly this comes in the form of varying a single dice by steps (d4, d6, d8, d10, etc) and then subtracting d6 from it. The baseline roll of d6 - d6 is a slightly more chaotic approximation to 4dF.

One of the motivations comes from compels. Traditional Fate compels aren't a good fit for the game. Their function is typically to introduce narrative complications into a character's life. They propel the story forward and add new wrinkles.

Will a d14 be needed?

But Wrath already has a mechanism for that. In the narrative phase, players can get narrative control and introduce all manner of complications. If they use an aspect as the basis for that narration, they get a Fate point. They have motivations for adding those sorts of complications.

So far, though, in playtesting, that doesn't generate quite a big enough stream of Fate points to the players. Using step dice presents another, more mechanical, option.

I've been playing with the idea of invoking aspects to step up the first dice, and compelling them to step down the first die. Once the first die is chosen, it's locked into place. After the roll, Fate points may only be spent on re-rolls. This opens up the option of players using aspects negatively against themselves, and just stepping down the first die roll.

This is less valuable than a normal use of an aspect, since it's only an expected value of +1, rather than a guaranteed +2. But it's also a little easier to keep the Fate points flowing, so maybe it will offset.

Also, this opens up some options for sources of increasing die steps:

Developments

It makes sense for different development types, such as Improved Casting, Advanced Armors, Thieves Tools, etc, to grant bonuses to the first die on any applicable rolls.

I would like it if at least some development provides bonuses for each mini-game (Infiltration, Skirmish, Diplomacy, and Warfare). Currently it's pretty random, with some mini-games like Diplomacy not having any such developments.

I'll have to think about that. I do have some developments that I'm not so keen on, and could probably swap out for a different effect.

Stunts

Stunts could also be used for bumping up dice rolls in a similar fashion. It will be tricky, though, to not overlap what developments are doing too much. Developments are more significant, since they apply to every character.

Using step dice also opens the door to stunts like this:

Wild Attack - Step up both the positive dice and the negative dice by one when using Fighting to attack.

So, a character could roll d8 - d8 to attack, increasing the range of the results.

Relationships

Currently characters have bonds with other characters that are just modeled as aspects. I reset all of these with one free invoke to encourage their use.

Another option would be to allow one step up/down on any applicable roll. This would make relationships really desirable, and make for some conscious choices on how characters interact.

Even more so if there are limited relationship slots. Because this is a troupe style game, this would make for some interesting choices when picking characters to take on a mission.

Stronghold Oath

Finally, there might be room for some sort of interaction with the Stronghold. After all, the Stronghold has aspects, and it's assumed that each character feels some way towards them.

So, in a similar style to relationships, having the option to step up/down the dice based on a particular Stronghold aspect might be interesting.

Baseline d4 - d6

If there are *too* many ways to step up dice without spending Fate points, it may be necessary for the baseline roll to be d4 - d6, just because the first dice will frequently get bumped up higher than that.

Rerolls

One thing that stepping up the first dice does is increase the value of re-rolls. As the range of results widens, they become more and more valuable.

Tactical Compels

I enjoy tactical mini-games in tabletop RPGs that help to break up a larger freeform narrative. For example, in Fate Core, the conflict mini-game is utilized to allow for more tactical thought via zones, which make positioning and distance relevant.

Wrath of the Autarch has four such mini-games (diplomacy, infiltration, skirmish, and warfare), which take inspiration from the mini-games in Diaspora as well as the conflict rules of Fate Core. Much of this post was written after recent playtests of the warfare mini-game, but it could apply to other structured resolution systems as well.

I grapple with how to handle compels in these sorts of structured mini-games. Compels make sense to me outside of those more structured parts of the game (and I include Fate Core conflicts here), but during the mini-games I find them less satisfactory. When I switch to this more structured mode of thinking, I prefer less GM fiat, and allowing compels tends to bring in lots of fiat.

There's also the issue that compels aren't designed as levers to alter mechanical structure within those mini-games.

For instance, compels are "help the kid in distress" or "you're a wanted lady, here come the guards", not so much "end your movement" or "move to this zone because of this situation" or even "you show up two turns after the conflict has started". However, I'm interested in exploring the pros and cons.

It seems like there are a few options in dealing with compels in highly structured situations that have less GM fiat.

No Compels

Many different sorts of tactics are already possible just with a combination of the basic Attack, Defend, Create Advantage, and Overcome Obstacle actions as described in Fate Core.

Aspects can be created in zones to serve as blocks or barriers, or allow for various parties to perform defense rolls. Supplementing these actions with a form of Success with Cost that allows for success in exchange for consequences further makes compels unnecessary.

It could also be supplemented with the sort of tactical stunts that +Sophie Lagace has been blogging about for the War of Ashes RPG.

The one downside is the limited flow of fate points, which could be undesirable if the mini-game is epic (like a large warfare scene). Fate points would still move about by invoking aspects on target characters (or units, in warfare). But that results in a dwindling pool.

Limited Actions

In Diaspora, compels during the mini-games just have limited uses, also reducing the need for GM fiat. For instance, in the warfare mini-game, they can be used to end a unit's movement if an aspect justifies such a thing. There is no GM fiat at all in the Diaspora warfare mini-game.

It seems possible to twist this dial infinitely, so additional effects could be added for different mini-games.

Glow in the dark FTW!

The downside here is that a list of mechanical effects for compels may create a pretty complex mini-game without much added benefit.

It seems like the effects would have to be carefully thought out with the benefit of getting a fate point, but there may be some room for interesting ideas.

Done well, there may be some interesting options. Compelling that cavalry unit to slow it down while it marches through the fens is a good idea to allow your archers time to fire, but if the cavalry unit makes it to the archers, having lots of extra fate points to spare won't be too fun for the archers!

It's also easy to not do them well. For instance, ending a unit's movement is fine if you're controlling armies with many units, but nothing is more boring than losing your turn if you don't get many to begin with.

Actually, while writing this blog post, I found the following entry by +Brad Murray regarding the choices of compels in Diaspora mini-games: http://www.vsca.ca/halfjack/?p=479. Good stuff, and very much the sorts of things I've been thinking about lately.

Negotiated Compels

It might be possible to allow for any action given a more open negotiation framework. Off-hand, it seems like this could slow the game down unless there is a healthy dose of GM fiat to keep things in check.

Even with GM fiat, though, allowing compels to have any mechanical effect seems like it would invite abuse.

Thoughts

My current feeling is that compels aren't really worth it for these mini-games, since it seems like most situations could be handled without them. If an avenue for gaining fate points is really needed beyond getting your aspects invoked against you, it might be easiest to just offer a thematically appropriate avenue depending on the mini-game. Of course, I can't think of any off-hand.

WotA Strategy Game Recap Pt 1: Rethinking Magic

WotA Strategy Game

I created a java program to help model the long term strategy in Wrath of the Autarch. It basically abstracts a session of play (one season of game time) into a few clicks that only take a couple minutes. It does this by treating characters very abstractly, with only a rank that says how good they are, and a major and minor focus which correspond to the four mini-games in WotA. Missions have one difficulty number, which is compared to the rank of the heroes to see how well they do. Resources, regions, and developments and such are treated fairly closely to how they are in the game.

I might blog more about it some other time (the program is online where the rules live), but I'm hoping it helps me examine whether or not all the mission types are worth doing, how resources can be gathered and managed, whether some developments are wildly overpriced, as well as just figuring out how the game feels as a whole. I've found quite a few areas to think about, and I'll slowly incorporate the changes back into the model and see how they feel. First up is magic.

Current Magic Rules in WotA

Magic in WotA comes from the land, from the wild, untamed areas of the realm. This is similar to the theme of Birthright, as well as coming from Arthurian myth (and probably many fantasy works). Using magic is always risky, particularly the release of powerful magic. The risk comes in the form of backlash, which is damage done when magical power is released (usually to the land from which it's drawn). These two foundational ideas aren't going to change.

Currently in the rules, spellcasters slowly accumulate mana each season they remain on a mana-rich region. This mana is then released when casting a spell. This concept isn't bad thematically, but it's really fiddly - particularly tracking when a sorcerer is on this or that region, and how much mana they get. Already in playtests it's something we constantly forget to do.

It also greatly penalizes sorcerers, because they spend all their time getting mana from regions, rather than training or going on missions.

Bound Regions and Starting Mana

Instead of having mana fluctuate between seasons, spending some here, gaining it there, I'm going to have each spellcaster start bound to a region. This region they're bound to forms a big part of their identity. In fact, I think it will be a mandatory aspect that each sorcerer has - such as Sorcerer of the Obsidian Wood. The players can work out what this means, what is the temperament of the land to which your bound? Is it calm and tranquil or wild and chaotic? That will help the players and GM decide when it's appropriate to invoke or compel the aspect.

At the start of each session, sorcerers get starting mana equal to one-half their Channeling skill times the mana value of the region.

For instance, Kara has a Channeling skill of 3.  If she's bound to the Obsidian Wood, which has a mana value of 3, she'll start every mission with 4 mana (3*3 = 9, 9/2 = 4).

This is much easier to track, because skills don't change very frequently, and neither will the mana value of a region. It also creates a nice range of mana for design reasons, because mana will generally range from 0-10, with 15 being an absolute maximum if the Stronghold is heavy into the arcane arts through heavy development research.

It is possible for a caster to switch regions, but I'm thinking it will take at least a season of doing nothing. If the land forms that big a part of their identity, changing a bound region is probably like forsaking a loved one.

Spell Power Ranges

I'll probably keep the "base magic effect" idea that's already in WotA. That is, a hero may spend one mana to transform their Spellcraft skill into an effect related to the sorcery they know. So, spending a point of mana when casting the Secret of Fire would allow a spellcaster to roll Spellcraft instead of Marksmanship to attack something in combat, etc.

Extra mana spent on the spell would function like fate points, either adding +2 or allowing a re-roll.

Besides that base effect, though (Apprentice level magic), there are additional spell effects cenetered around three bands of power roughly corresponding to spending 5 (Initiate), 10 (Journeyman), or 15 (Keeper) mana points.

The details of the effects would depend on the particular spell, but they would be exponentially better than using the mana points as simple fate points. For instance, spending 15 mana on a spell would do things like raise an army of the dead, blow apart castles, or sway the will of a civilization. That level of power is the pinnacle of a campaign.

Each of these levels of power is accessed through Spellcraft skill stunts.

Backlash

The general procedure for casting a spell works a little like Dresden Files RPG, with one pretty big difference: spells always succeed.

• First, the spellcaster spends mana to cast a spell, rolling their Spellcraft skill to determine the overall effect. The effect depends on the spell and the amount of mana spent.
• Next, a Channeling skill vs. mana spent check is made, with any difference below the target number taken as backlash. Most commonly, each point of backlash means one resource from the caster's home region is gone. The land is dying - and it's your fault!

This is pretty harsh, because there's almost always going to be a chance of backlash, no matter how good the caster becomes. In the case of huge mana spends, like 15, it's pretty likely the whole region will be destroyed and turned into a wasteland.

I might allow the caster to absorb some of the backlash as mental stress - maybe taking a consequence to lower the backlash by one. That might be a good Channeling stunt?

As I mentioned at the start, though, magic is risky, and I don't want any combination of stunts or abilities to remove that risk. Just lower it.

Developments and Artifacts

These changes are going to wreak havoc on the Arcane developments I have, because many of them are built from the previous method of gaining and using mana. I've re-thought them as follows. Oh, and a word about the following stunts: I've been using d6-d6 rather than 4dF (the four fate dice) for my WotA games lately, and many stunts and developments rely on that fact.

• Mana Forge - The land gains one extra mana.
• Advanced Mana Forge - No longer exists
• Improved Channeling - Roll d8-d6 for backlash skill checks. (Add one if using fate dice)
• Advanced Channeling - Roll d10 - d6 for backlash skill checks. (Add two if using fate dice)
• Expert Channeling - Roll d12 - d6 for backlash skill checks. (Add three if using fate dice)
• Improved Casting - Roll d8-d6 for all spell effects related to rolling Spellcraft.

• Advanced Casting - Roll d10 - d6 for all spell effects related to rolling Spellcraft.
• Expert Casting - Roll d12 - d6 for all spell effects related to rolling Spellcraft.
• Mages Guild - Every character gains one Spellcraft stunt that they have the prerequisites for, or may become an Initiate in a secret even if they don't have the correct prerequisites.
• Thedda's Palimpsest (artifact from Burgan Vale) - Every region controlled by the Stronghold has one extra mana for the purposes of channeling spellpower (even regions with no mana may be treated as having one).
• Artificer - Unchanged.
• Battle Mages - Unchanged.

Since regions have 0-3 mana, this puts the far upper limit of spellpower available at about 15. If the region had 3 mana to start with, along with a mana forge, and the Stronghold has retrieved Thedda's Palimpsest, the region will grant 5 mana for the purpose of casting spells.  With a Channeling skill of 6 (high, but possible by mid-game), this is 15 mana to start each session.

Getting to the point where spellcasters start each mission with 15 mana requires a massive dedication to the Arcane tech tree, forming the backbone of the whole Stronghold strategy. It's definitely a risky, but potentially powerful, strategy.

Neutral Regions with Mana

Another area that I've really noticed in playing the strategy game is that some of the neutral regions really aren't that appealing in terms of targets for conquest missions. Part of this is because too many of them are a mish-mash of resources, without much thought being given to how they fit into various Stronghold strategies.

I'm thinking of really restricting regions with a mana value of 3 to Dusk's Ayrie (where the great wyrm Arankh makes his home) and probably one of Burgan Vale's home regions.

That makes both of those bigger targets for the Stronghold that wants to go the magic route. Of course, attacking Burgan Vale seems unlikely since they would be the best ally to a magic-centered Stronghold.

Retroactive Compels

One of the things that I really like about Cortex+ is that there exists a mechanism for players to easily gain plot points (story points or fate points or whatever you wish to call them) by adjusting their dice pools prior to rolling if some trait (aspect) applies in a way that makes life difficult.

In my experience both playing and running in Fate games, GMs almost universally have trouble keeping the Fate point economy moving enough on their own, and players usually don't overcome the table inertia to subtly maneuver for compels.  Certainly, familiarity with the characters helps, as does practice on the part of the GM, but I still find myself not doing it well when I run traditional Fate games even though I'm consciously looking for opportunities to do so.

In Wrath of the Autarch, I remedied this by allowing players to get a Fate point when they failed a roll during the narrative phase, and then used an aspect to color the nature of the narration.  If the aspect involved a relationship with another player, both players could get a Fate point.

This worked really well to bring the downside of aspects into play quite a bit more, because failing a roll is a such an easily remembered concrete trigger.  It also worked really well to springboard into the next dilemma, failing forward to the next problem.

In WotA, during the narrative phase, players have quite a bit of narrative control over the developing story, more than in Fate Core, but I don't see any reason this couldn't be used in a similar fashion for standard Fate, although I've yet to do so.

There is an economy of rolls in the narrative phase of WotA that doesn't exist in Fate Core, so it might have to be constrained a little (particularly for subsystems like the Conflict rules which have lots of rolling), but I still think it could work in general.

The benefits of something like this are twofold: a way for players to easily get Fate points without GM oversight as well as a method to make failure a little more rich by bringing in new problems related to a character's aspects (failing forward).