Fantasy A Shattered Kingdom [Interest Check]

[Deucalion]

Everything started so well, too. Velina had been ruled by the royal Dechalier House for five generations, our trading routes were flourishing and our technology was advancing with speeds never seen before. The wars between the Great Empires didn't bother us, as we simply did business with all of them and continued to obtain a wide array of resources. Everything was good.


Of course something had to go and happen.


While the kingdom itself was flourishing, an underlying seething rivalry was tearing the political sphere at the seams. There was numerous nobles, dukes and barons, that felt they hadn't gotten what they deserved. That they should hold more land than what the king at the time, Erik Dechalier II, had given them. Somehow, almost every last one of them felt cheated, holding the opinion that they should have parts of what their neighbours had. I'm not sure why, I don't know how the king could possibly have cheated everyone in the kingdom like the dukes seemed to collectively claim. Either way, war began. Two duchies both wanted a valuable mine whose mountain had been split between them and they began fighting over it. As soon as one battle started, the other duchies, ripe with bitterness in turn, used it as an excuse to try and expand. The king tried to control the situation to best ability, but it didn't help matters much. Especially once he went down to one of the duchies personally. The details are muddy, but the king was shot. If it was an assassination, attack from an enemy duchy or stray bullet, we will never know, but the king was dead. With no central leader, Velina plunged into chaos at an even faster rate. It didn't take long for the flourishing kingdom to devolve to a collection of warring fiefdoms, lead by their respective warlords.


Today, things aren't a lot better. War is the standard way of living, every warlord is trying to expand their own territory and pave out their own individual nations, while everyone is fearing that the Great Empires will swoop in and take what theu want from this vulnerable mess of a kingdom. It is a time of paranoia and distrust, heroic warriors and shadow-laden politics, temporary alliances and schemes of betrayal. Maybe someone will find a way to finally unite the land again?





Yeah, the paragraphs above really said it all, but that's the setting in a nutshell. A Shattered Kingdom is a roleplay in the making taking place in the fantasy kingdom of Velina, which has been thorn apart into a battle royale between twenty-something different warlords, all trying to claim the land as their own. The stories told can be all from heroic bravado on the battlefield to tricky politics, internal or external. Add in a healthy dosage of magic, some industrialisation, creatures of majestic and mystic capabilities and what do you get?


Something I really want to see if people are interested in! So make your comments here.

 

[Bardiel]

Kudos on working to develop a neat, little backstory for the game (that isn't vague and lacking punctuation). Did you have a system in mind for it?

 

[roxtrox7]

This is quite interesting. I would be up for joining.

 

[Deucalion]

Kudos on working to develop a neat, little backstory for the game (that isn't vague and lacking punctuation). Did you have a system in mind for it?

The game would be a mixture of strategy, storytelling and resource-management. Every player would play mainly as a warlord of their own, with a map showcasing various territories and resources available. From there, it is up to the player to decide what to do. Every part of a chosen territory is split by a hex-grid system, every cell on the grid holding some sort of resource such as people (for soldiers and item production), ores (for items), crops (to feed your people) or wilds (to find wild animals for items and food). You can choose to invade another player's cell and doing so will result in a battle between fairly small armies to represent the battle as a whole. By this system, warlords would rise and fall, allegiances could be made or broken and if a player is completely defeated, they can opt to make a new warlord, revealing more and more of Velina as the map grows.

 

[Bardiel]

Interesting. Reminds me of Civilisation 5 to an extent. Without maintaining excel sheets of the economy, will a simplified system be used, say if a player has 20 cells, that it could be summerised that they have access to +3 ore, +5 wilds, +8 crops, +21 people. That is to say, on that given "turn" or post, the player can makes +3 ore for weapons production or town fortifications? In the above example, I am suggesting the crops produce x2 what wilds does (perhaps leading to the thread of converting wilds to farmland, but I digress), and that the sum total of food production is the limit to the population (+21 people doesn't have to be literal, but rather representative). Some sort of mechanics such as these would be easy to update with each post, e.g.

+8 Crops


+5 Wilds


+3 Ore


+21 Population

Actions can still be posted for the Turn or whatever timing/balancing device you wish to use.

 

[Deucalion]

That is similar to what I had in mind, yes. Additionally, new resources might pop up every so often, making many warlords scramble to get to it first. Quite nothing like four armies duking it out in the desert sands because everyone wants those magic crystals

 

[CrimsonEclipse]

I am interested in joining this.

 

[Bardiel]

Perhaps @Grey may be interested?

 

[Grey]

What a breath of a fresh air. I may well be interested (Good find, Bardiel).


How do you plan to resolve conflicts?

 

[Deucalion]

Conflicts will mostly be handled through politics between players. If two warlords can agree to solve things peacefully through trade or something such, the exchange of control of a cell or a certain amount of resources would suffice. If combat results, the warlord gets to pick what forces to send to the battle and what to equip them with. From there, the battle is played out with the warlords' players taking the roles of their respective soldiers, or at least the force's commander. After a short skirmish (I'm thinking 20 posts or somesuch), there will be held a vote among the players of which army objectively defeated the other, with I having final say. Of course, this system requires a certain level of maturity from the players, the goal being to write a good story and not to "win" the game. Needless arguing over a battle or drama Out of Character will not be tolerated.

 

[Grey]

Eeeeugh, that's a little clunky for my liking when it could be resolved with dice more easily and with as much narrative heft.

 

[Deucalion]

That's the system I've had in mind only, though. That's why I got this draft up, for feedback. If dice would be more convenient, something could be arranged for that. All that's needed is a good system

 

[Grey]

I can recommend a couple,, have written one, and could write one for you if you want it. It can be hard to get players on this site to engage with a system, though.

 

[Deucalion]

System recommendations would be very appreciated! On a whim, I'm feeling that a short but inclusive skill list, with variables that the warlord can have their soldiers train up in villages and such to be the best option.

 

[Grey]

Legend of the Five Rings, 4th Edition, is one of the most perfect systems I've read or played, with probably the best mechanics for mass combat between armies. It's not cheap, though.


I can give you a tweaked version of my own from Crucible. Since you only want it for these conflicts it should be easy enough to trim down.


Hrm, lemme have a poke and see what else I can find. Houses of the Blooded might not be a bad route.

 

[Bardiel]

I think the inclusion of a dice system would help a lot in resolution.

 

[Three Clubs]

I would like to join in if possible, sounds like a very interesting concept for an RP. You could always use a Dune type of combat system where players secretly commit their forces ahead of time.

 

[Deucalion]

Reading through it, I believe the Crucible system would work great for what I have in mind. Down and dirty combat with less glamour and more actual warfare, though certainly with fantastical elements. I will use a modified and heavily trimmes down version of these rules to handle combat situations, if that is alright with @Grey


With all these potential players, we should be ready to open up a thread soon.

 

[Grey]

Perfectly fine with me, glad you like it. If you want a hand in paring it down give me a shout.

 

[FleetingInfinity]

This sounds really intriguing. Definitely unique at least in the way that it's being handled, certainly I've never taken part in a Forum RP done this way before anyway. I'd be interested in joining.

 

[Bardiel]

Haven't seen mass combat in Crucible, which further adds to the intrigue.

 

[Mojique]

What tech level are we talking? I've some creative ideas when I hear the words "industrial period," but I want to know if the tech level I'm thinking of is a bit out of reach.

 

[Deucalion]

Oh crap this is still alive!


I am so sorry for the sudden silence, everyone. Christmas, new years and a new school year all kind of swept in and kept me busy until just this week, but I'm here now and we're back in business!


I got some things written in the meantime, however! Notes on how combat is going to work is here, with feedback welcome and appreciated.


Combat / The Crunchy Bits

Spoiler

Combat in A Shattered Kingdom is inevitable, what with the entire kingdom being in civil war and all that. Lords will pit their armies against one another and might even duke it out in a (not so) honorable duel from time to time. For the purposes of this, the following system is in place for armies:

• There are three kinds of Unit Categories in A Shattered Kingdom. There are common Soldiers, there are the reliable Champions and there is the Lord. The Soldiers are your run of the mill trained swordsmen and archers. They are not too important individually, but make up the vast majority of a Lord's army and are invaluable if you wish to win any grand battles. The Soldiers typically have predetermined stats, as they are trained en masse in the Lord's towns, converting them from mere villagers to warriors for their warlord. Depending on in what they were trained, how well the town is doing and how the Lord has arranged their training regimen, the actual Skills and Attributes of a Soldier can vary, but they usually only do one thing as a Unit. Swordsmen charge in with their blades, gunners fire their guns, archers rain arrows over the enemy, cavalry rides in on horseback, spellcasters use magic and so on. There's very little variation between Soldiers of the same Unit Type. Champions, on the other hand, are those one in a million individuals. These guys have a deeper rooted personality for the narrative, more skills, more variety and probably more equipment than your common soldier. The Soldiers make up the bulk of the army, but the Champions define it. They are the heroes that songs are sung about, they are those champions of the battlefield that will lead their armies to victory. Unlike Soldiers, Champions can vary significantly, their abilities and stats depending entirely on how the Lord encountered them and how they have been doing since then. Every so often a Lord will get the chance to obtain a Champion, but these circumstances are rare. Finally, a Lord is well, the Lord. The player's main character and the one leading the entire fiefdom. Very rarely will a Lord actually show up on the battlefield in person due to the risks involved, but when they do, beware. Their fighting prowess often rivals the greatest of knights.
  
• Combat will run on the Crucible System, or rather, a very simple filed down version of its combat mechanics, adapted to make mass combat more streamlined and fast. Characters simply have the five Attributes of Strength, Dexterity, Fitness, Intuition and Willpower, though Skills can vary wildly as long as they have some sort of in-combat effect. Soldiers usually have very standardized Attributes and Skills depending on what they were trained to do, while Champions are a lot more diverse and impressive. Lords are created by the player for obvious reasons. For the sake of streamlining, Soldiers also have a simple Health Score of 5 and no sort of Condition Score, they go down quickly, but there's a lot of them. Champions and Lords however, have full Condition and Health as described in the Crucible system.
  
• If a battle is going badly, Soldiers can lose Morale, which gives penalties. This can be mitigated by a Champion or Lord with the Leadership Skill.