CROM - Playtest Pics

Just a quick image dump of some pics from Tuesday night's platest of CROM. Nothing too spectacular. I'm still painting minis and the terrain was just quickly setup to give us something to play around.

The board overall. Villains started on the side at the altar by the ruler.

Close up of the idol and worshipping barbarians.

Barbarian fanatic charges ahead of his minions at one of the two heroes.

CROM - First Playtest

I finally got a chance to run a non-solo game of CROM. Thanks to my buddy Derek I was able to get a quick game in with the intention of giving the stock CROM rules, as published by Paul over at Matakishi's Tea House, a good play before continuing to modify the rules with additional house rules.

The set-up was really simple. A woodland on the edge of a river. In the woods, a bestial warrior and his six warriors (in two minion groups) vs. a 12 Dice hero and a 10 Dice hero. The heroes managed to divide and conquer the minions pretty easily and unfortunately didn't take all that much damage in the process. By the time the villain, who has 10 Dice made it into combat with the heroes, he wasn't much of a match for them.

One observation that was made early in reading the rules was that minions seem to have the potential to really beat the crap out of heroes. Successfully maneuvered minions can force a hero to spend all of his allocated Combat dice on defense and end up left with none for attacking OR even worse leave him so short on dice that he ends up without any Combat dice left for even a defense roll, meaning in any combat he will automatically take at least 2 Dice of damage.

We decided to play test a combat engagement after the game to test this and in our dice off, a 12 Dice hero was dispatched in one turn by a group of three minions. Further testing may be needed to see if this is as easy to do as the test would indicate. I am also going to go over the rules and Paul's first play test scenario again to make sure that I'm not missing anything on how Minions operate.

Still have a lot of love for this system so far.

Take care,

-Eli

CROM - Heroic Abilities

As I mentioned in a previous post, my gaming group found that CROM needed a bit more for us, especially if it was going to get some replay. The core mechanics of the game are solid enough, but the trouble we had was that other than a character's dice pool and miniature, there wasn't much to set one apart from the other. All 12 Dice characters would essentially be the same figure. To combat this we started looking into alternatives.

One thought I had was for a collection of Heroic Abilities that would be put on cards and selected by players when creating their heroes. These could be used for long-term play or for one-offs or ignored for simpler games. I am still working out how to allocate cards but the working formula is something along the lines of 1 card for every 4 dice in the character's pool, rounded down. Using this formula, more powerful characters will get more abilities to distinguish them. For example - Conan has 12 dice in his pool, allowing him a selection of three Heroic Ability cards while Red Sonja (10 Dice) and Subotai (10 Dice) would each receive only two cards (10/4 = 2.5. rounded down to 2).

As I am working on the Heroic Abilities, the majority of them fall into the combat categories. Mostly, this is because the majority of the game comes down to either Attack or Defense rolls. There are some movement abilities in the works, but movement is pretty straight forward with modifications for climbing, jumping and terrain. What there are very few of are cards that tap into the use of Special dice. This is very much due to the near total absence of good examples of Special actions in CROM. Magic falls under this category, but so far that is touched on only briefly concerning summoning and controlling creatures.

I've included a brief list of some of the Heroic Abilities I am considering for the game. Some of the modifiers tap into rules created either by myself or borrowed from Spacejacker's ground work which I happily borrowed (Thanks for the good work dude!). These may change as I play test them and in some cases there may seem to be similarities between abilities that are not so clear unless you have read the dice mechanics of this game.

MIGHTY FOE (Attack) +1d6 to attack rolls in melee

FOE CLEAVER (Attack) +1 automatic 6 to attack rolls in melee
CLEVER FIGHTER (Defense) +1d6 to defense rolls in melee
STALWART (Defense) +1 automatic 6 to defense rolls in melee
SWEEPING ATTACK (Attack) Attack two adjacent opponents in melee with one attack roll
FISTS OF STEEL (Attack) Unarmed attacks are made at no penalty
KEEN EYED (Attack) +1d6 to attack ranged attack rolls
DEAD SHOT (Attack) +1 automatic 6 to ranged attacks
TRICK SHOOTING (Attack) The hero does not require line of site to shoot at target. Cannot shoot through solid walls or obstacles but can shoot around corners and over linear obstacles.
BATTLE RAGER (Attack) If the hero slays an opponent in melee combat, he may do an automatic follow-up attack on a second opponent within 4 inches.
QUICK DEFENSE (Defense) Attackers do not get bonuses for multiple attackers
SHIELD BASHER (Attack) Can use shield as a second weapon for dual wielding bonus.
MISSILE DEFLECTION (Defense) +1d6 when defending against missile attacks.
HEROIC LEAP (Movement) +1d6 when rolling for jump moves
UNTOUCHABLE (Defense) +1d6 to all defense rolls
BATTLE CRY (Attack) -1d6 to opponent’s defense roll
UNFLINCHING (Defense) Attacks against this hero inflict 1 less hit.

In the above examples, you will notice each Heroic Ability name is followed by a parenthetical notation. This is not just an organizational notation, but I plan to use it to limit Heroic Abilities. I haven't decided how exactly, but it seemed a good up front measure to categorize the abilities by what dice pool they are designed to modify. One possible way to limit the use of these cards will be to place a cap on how many of one type of card a hero may have.

Lastly, I have also worked on a card layout for these cards. I picked a new piece of artwork to go on the card backs to set them apart from the existing cards which are used in the iinitiative deck. These cards will be held by the player using them.

CROM - A Fun Conan Skirmish Game From Matakishi

I recently stumbled onto a new skirmish level miniatures game in development by the talented Paul Ward of Matakishi's Tea House fame. With the working title of CROM, the system provides a fast, simple play system using dice pools and the allocation of those dice for specific actions. Created for use in the fantasy world of Conan, the system is basic enough to be adapted to a number of settings and has already been morphed into Greek myth and pirate settings by Paul and other players.

Though the system is still in development, with rules for magic and scenario design, it is very much playable right now and I'm sure that Paul wouldn't mind folks putting it through its paces. One thing I noticed is that the game is definitely for those with  love of the setting and the genre. Those who look to min/max systems or break them will likely find it easy to do so in this game that uses a very simple, flexible, and abstracted system.

Upon initial read we, myself and another guy from my gaming group, felt that the system was basic enough that it could even have a few more layers of detail added without overpowering the core mechanics or ruining play. For example, the game as written seems to use a WYSIWYG approach to the minis being played and does not have any specific rules for weapons or equipment. Also, there is little to set characters apart save their dice pools, something we felt might be remedied by a system of character traits providing modifiers to the basic game play. There is a distinct possibility that such things are already in the works, but as Paul has yet to release the finished product, that remains to be seen. Besides, I love tinkering with systems.

Check it out and give it a try, but make sure if you do to let Paul know how it went.

-Eli