Underwater Reflections on Subnautica

Released in 2018, Subnautica is an underwater survival game. It received a positive reception. Criticisms tended to be leveled at its performance on certain systems as well as a number of bugs that, as of the latest version released in 2020, appear to remain unaddressed. But we’ll talk about that as we go. For now, let’s talk about the core gameplay and what makes Subnautica a title worth playing.

The base-building aspect is probably the most appealing element to me. It is fun to design habitats and try to make them as efficient as possible. Connecting my main base to a thermal source of power felt like a true achievement. There are a variety of structures and devices to make. The only disappointment was realizing that there weren’t even more things to construct. It’s great that the mechanic left me wanting more rather than feeling overwhelmed by too many options.

Throughout the game, the lack of combat felt refreshing. Here’s a title that finally understands what some survival game enthusiasts want: a focus on survival, resource-gathering, base-building, and exploration. If combat is merely going to be an afterthought put into the game because developers think that most game players want it, they’ve completely missed the point. Arguably, Minecraft fell into this trap. When combat was first added to that game, it felt half-baked. It took years for it to be improved and even now is probably the weakest part of the game. Subnautica does allow players to fight the creatures they encounter in the mid- to late-game. However, fighting them is never required. The fauna can be avoided and left to their own devices. It’s really great to see a game make combat completely optional. Apparently, the designers wanted to exclude guns from the beginning to give younger audiences a game to play that offered non-violent solutions to problems.

The vehicles available to the player each have their own purposes and truly feel unique from each other. The Seamoth is a delightfully speedy way to travel through much of the game. Its use in the end-game is diminished simply because it can’t be used at extreme depths. The Cyclops, a submarine, is equipped with storage lockers, a vehicle bay, and even allows the player to add their own attachments to it (such as a fabricator, allowing a player to make whatever else they need on the go). Although the Cyclops is slow and more difficult to drive compared to the Seamoth, its versatility and status as a mobile base more than make up for its low speed. Finally, the Prawn Suit is a delight to pilot. It feels like controlling a more athletic version of the loading mechs in the second Alien film.

The narrative is delivered in occasional radio broadcasts from other survivors and records left throughout the environment. The scanning tool also allows players to amass an encyclopedia’s worth of information about the planet. The story is serviceable and well-suited to this type of game. It’s nice that it stays out of the way and is there for players who want to dig deeper into the lore. It’s not a terribly complex plot, but that’s just fine for a game on this scale.

While the narrative might not be complicated, the goal remains clear throughout the game: escape the planet. It’s not clear at first how to do that, meaning that the player will spend most of the title accomplishing smaller goals: building a first habitat, figuring out how to get a better source of energy, and exploring more of the surrounding areas. Without giving too much away, the ending feels truly satisfying because it’s the culmination of all of the player’s smaller goals leading up to it.

One element that deserves highlighting is the sense of discovery. Exploring the various biomes feels great. There’s always something to find. During the early game, every new resource or blueprint is a boon. It’s remarkable that the developers managed to maintain this level of progression throughout nearly the entire game.

Related to exploration, Subnautica does a fantastic job at getting under a player’s skin. There’s a primal fear about the deep sea. When a player goes so far down that it’s dark even during the daytime, things get spooky quickly. There’s nothing more unnerving than exploring an area where there’s only water around. After all, it’s clear that not all of the fauna is peaceful. And some of it grows rather large. 

Subnautica isn’t perfect, of course. Players can explore the remains of the spaceship that crash landed, which is largely above the waters. The protagonist is a slow-mover on land even when holding the run button down. Players may have to come back to the ship’s smoldering remains more than once if they miss anything. It’s definitely an area that isn’t terribly interesting the first time, and being forced to return doesn’t improve it.

There are graphical glitches as well. The animations to enter a player’s base are well done. It’s a shame that they’ll suddenly stop working altogether if a base reaches a certain size (there may also be other causes). Apparently players have been able to fix the disappearing animations on the PC version, but a solution has remained elusive for the PS4 version. While this problem is not a game-breaking one, it’s a shame that it still remains.

The Prawn Suit can sometimes get stuck on the terrain. This problem seemed most noticeable in one of the final areas. Players should simply ensure that they have the grappling hook attachment, which enables them to pull themselves along until the suit can walk again.

The end-game is, unfortunately, a little boring. Leading up to the final areas, there’s a good pace and sense of progress as players continue discovering blueprints and making new tools and vehicles to help them explore more of the planet. Most of the areas in the game are big enough to search and feel impressively expansive without being too large. Some of the end-game areas, on the other hand, are simply too big, making traversal feel like a chore. Unlocking warp gates does alleviate some of this problem, but using them requires waiting a while for the game to load a different part of the world. The warp gates also introduce an issue usually absent from the rest of the game: sections of the world that simply haven’t loaded yet, forcing a player to wait a little while for it to pop in.

Putting the bugs aside, there are some quality of life design choices that might’ve made the game more convenient. Managing resources and storage in survival games is typically left up to the player to figure out. It would be nice if more games gave players better management options. For example, if a player is already at their main base surrounded by lockers filled with resources, why can’t they simply craft what they want without having to find all the necessary materials from the various lockers? In a futuristic setting like Subnatucia’s, this could have easily been an advanced base development offered to players (inanimate matter transport device, perhaps?). This critique is applicable to the wider genre and not just Subnautica.

As much as the end-game vehicles are fun to use, the absence of speed upgrades for them is felt all too strongly in the overly large end-game areas. Traveling at the same speed as the Seamoth in the final levels might have alleviated some of the tedium.

Some of the survivor records are tricky to find. It would’ve been helpful if man-made objects had a faint glow to them when a player got close to them. It can sometimes be easy to miss key items (blueprints or lore records) due to their blending in with the rest of the environment. A scanner room can be used to help pinpoint some of these objects but not all of them.

The game could’ve benefited from a few more in-game tutorials (or even an electronic manual). Sometimes it was ambiguous why certain buildings couldn’t be attached to a base. Players probably shouldn’t be expected to search for fan-made wikis online in order to figure out basic gameplay mechanics. Games don’t have to be patronizing, but it would be nice if they tried to explain a little bit more about what the player can do.

Overall, Subnautica is an excellent survival title. Despite its flaws, it gets many key components right. It’s been a treat to traverse its waters. Coming three years late to experience this game has its benefits: a sequel, Subnautica: Below Zero, was released back in May of this year. To avoid genre fatigue, I plan to hold off on tackling it quite yet. All the same, it’s comforting to know that there are more waters out there just waiting to be explored.

Overview of Tenkatōitsu (Part 3)

This is the third part of a series on this historical board wargame about three battles from Japan’s Warring States Period. For those new to this series, check out part one and part two.

The Battle of Sekigahara (1600)

The odds for this scenario are heavily stacked in the favor of Tokugawa Ieyasu. Tokugawa’s forces vastly outnumber Ishida Mitsunari’s troops, especially when the game starts and many forces ostensibly under Ishida’s banner are so-called “undecided Clans,” which will not fight (aside from defending themselves) until they have chosen a side.

Terazawa Hirotaka’s crest (mon) is a crab, which makes it rank among the best

This scenario adds the Betrayal bowl and Diplomacy play-aid to the mix. Before each player’s Command Points are determined, the Diplomacy phase must be completed. Players each take turns placing markers into the Betrayal bowl. The number of markers placed by each player depends on the circumstances of the game. Once they have been placed in the Betrayal bowl, some of these markers are taken and their results checked to adjust the undecided Clans’ position along the Loyalty/Treason tracker. If a Clan reaches the end of the Loyal side, they join Ishida’s side; if they go to the treason end, they join Tokugawa’s side. The number of Betrayal markers taken from the bowl gradually increases during the game, making it more and more likely that Tokugawa’s markers will be drawn.

In real life, many of Ishida’s supporters switched sides during the confrontation. Prior to these double-crosses, Ishida’s Western Army outnumbered Tokugawa’s Eastern Army; the betrayals definitely gave Tokugawa the upper hand.

In the scenario, several Clans have influence over other Clans. If one of these influencers joins a side, it makes other Clans more likely to join that same side. The entire Betrayal mechanic is an interesting way to address the historical reality in a fun way. It does sacrifice some level of accuracy for a more random approach to the battle. Yet at the same time the randomness allows players to explore some alternative historical possibilities. What would have happened if Ishida had more supporters remain on his side?

Painting of Ishida Mitsunari

In addition to the usual Victory Points awarded for defeating enemy units with Elan values, there are several player-specific stars on the map that are worth varying amounts of VPs. A player can only capture stars of their color (bluish-grey for Ishida, orange-gold for Tokugawa) and their positions are generally in enemy-held territory when the game starts. These stars are only counted at the end of the game and a player must have one of their units on the hex containing it with no enemies projecting a Zone of Control into the hex.

Is it possible for Ishida to win this scenario? With a decent strategy and a whole lot of luck, his Western Army seems to have a chance. It is probably easiest for the Ishida player to focus on denying the Tokugawa player victory and end the game in a draw, since the conditions for such a stalemate are less onerous than outright victory.

The Ishida player desperately needs undecided Clans to remain loyal, with a particular focus on the large groups of units in the south-west and south-east sections of the map, not to mention Chōsokabe Morichika’s Clan, which enters the game off-map. The player that manages to gain Chōsokabe’s favor has two choices for where his troops enter the map: in the middle of the southern edge, or in the middle of the eastern edge. This flexibility makes his Clan a valuable asset. In reality, Chōsokabe did not betray Ishida. In this playthrough, it is looking more and more likely that Chōsokabe will side with Tokugawa this time.

Painting of Chōsokabe Morichika

As of this writing, Turn #7 is just about to start. Over the past six turns, Tokugawa’s forces have marched from east to west and smashed into the Western Army. Although Tokugawa has destroyed a great deal of the Western Army, Ishida has made some good use of Tactics to do some damage to the Eastern Army. The Victory Point totals thus far are still pretty close. Ishida has also managed to secure the support of Kobayakawa Hideaki’s Clan (the large one in the south-west mentioned above), which the real Ishida was not able to do.

As long as Kobayakawa’s Clan remains undecided, the Tokugawa player can do what the rulebook calls the “Arquebuses gambit” and, after the Betrayal chits have been placed in the bowl, declare that they are firing their weapons on Kobayakawa’s Clan to force him to make a decision. The players then pull a single chit from the Betrayal bowl and Kobayakawa chooses the side corresponding to the chit. This option for the Tokugawa player seems to be a no-brainer once they have a high number of Betrayal chits in the bowl. If Kobayakawa is leaning towards Ishida anyway, the Tokugawa player has nothing to lose.

I guessed in the second part of this series on Tenkatōitsu, that Tactics would be especially useful, and that proved to be true in this scenario. An “assault” (totsugeki) Tactic gives the attacker a significant bonus not only to combat capability but also to movement allowance. Ishida managed to push Tokugawa’s forces a little bit thanks to well-timed assaults. Both sides managed to use “planned retreat” (kōtai) Tactics effectively; a normal withdraw gives the enemy a chance to pursue the withdrawing units, while this Tactic prevents any kind of pursuit.

Although they are typically helpful, Tactics are difficult to time properly. The Clan that gets to employ the Tactic must still be drawn randomly from the bowl, and there is a decent chance that the Clan will be drawn at an improper time. Clans can, of course, be thrown back into the bowl at the player’s discretion, but this carries its own risks; when will the Clan be drawn next? Will it still be drawn before the turn ends completely? The Tactic will still be usable next turn, but by then will it be nearly as effective? Despite this challenge, wise use of Tactics appears to be one of the major ways that players can turn the tide of the battle.

The Tokugawa player could have used some of his army in the eastern side of the map to harass the undecided Clans that are positioned there. There are a handful of small Clans that would be worth defeating for the Victory Points. Their small size would pose little threat to Tokugawa’s troops on that side of the map. Yet playing the Tokugawa side makes one want to focus on the units directly under the Ishida player’s control.

While the scenario has not concluded yet, it is clear at the halfway mark that there is a certain level of balance despite the asymmetrical nature of the conflict. Certainly luck has played a role in Ishida’s stalwart defense. At the same time, it has been a far closer match than expected. Perhaps playing solo has led me to, even on a subconscious level, favor Ishida and make poorer decisions as Tokugawa than a real opponent would. But that can only account for so much, since the rules of this system require strict adherence to procedures. For example, once opposing Clans have engaged in combat, the rules make all of the units fight whether the player really wants to or not. Sometimes bad positioning happens despite a player’s best efforts and a single Clan ends up having to fight more than one enemy unit at a time.

Painting of the battle

This scenario has felt most like a puzzle compared to the first two. At Yamazaki, the Akechi Mitsuhide player is simply trying to conduct as best a defense as possible. At Nagakute, both players feel relatively equal; it comes down to positioning in the mountainous terrain for advantage in combats and, for the Tokugawa player, deciding if recapturing Iwasaki Castle is worth it or not. Here, at Sekigara, the Ishida player is going to need a clever plan of action to prevent Tokugawa from overwhelming the Western Army. If Ishida can secure the support of additional Clans, the tables may even turn and force the Tokugawa player to go on the defensive.

Tentative Conclusions

Since starting this series, I have been looking for reliable books on the battles included in this game to determine how accurate the scenarios really are. Reading Wikipedia entries on the battles can give us a rough idea that may or may not be reliable, but it is far better to find published monographs. Alas, it has proven a little more difficult to find sources than was anticipated. We will have to return to the historical record sometime in the future. At the least, playing through this game has made me far more interested in the details of these battles as well as the politics of the time period.

In terms of gameplay, this game has been a tremendous introduction to true board wargaming. Hex and counter games have captivated me for a few years now, and finally getting one and playing through it has been a treat. Although these kinds of games can look intimidating, Tenkatōitsu is compelling evidence that there are titles within this genre that are manageable and fun. It takes time to learn the rules, but the more one plays the more they make sense and become second nature. Before long, a player may discover that they are focusing more on strategy rather than just trying to keep up with the procedures.

Most of the scenarios demand a good deal of time from the players. The back of the box estimates one turn to take between thirty minutes to one hour. With all of the scenarios having at least sixteen turns, that means players probably will not be able to finish a scenario in a single session. That is not a bad thing necessarily, although it does mean that players will need a space to set the game up that can be occupied for some time. Some matches may go completely one-sided, at which point the losing player may wish to concede. It is ideal that all of the scenarios have the possibility of ending in a draw. Asymmetrical conflicts make a draw a great achievement.

At the moment, the only other titles that I would like to try are out of print, meaning that it may prove difficult to find affordable copies. The list of games includes (in order of interest): Dragon Rage (1982, 2011); White Bear and Red Moon (1975), also published as Dragon Pass (1981); and Starship Troopers (1976). Readers may be able to tell by the names that these titles are all in the fantasy and science fiction genres. There are probably far more board wargames in historical settings, yet these are the ones that I find myself drawn to.

Although the crunch in Tenkatōitsu has been engaging, it is hard to tell what my limit for difficulty is yet. The 20-some page rulebook is concise and well organized. Despite its relative brevity, I tend to forget rules fairly regularly. Would a more complex system not just result in more rules unintentionally left by the wayside?

It bears repeating that I have been playing this game completely solo for this series. It will be a while before I have an opportunity to try playing one of the scenarios with a second player.

Although this entry marks the end of this series for the time being, we will return again to Tenkatōitsu. As mentioned above, we need to set the historical record straight for one thing. Plus we will have to try the Battle of Yamazaki again to see how it plays with a better grasp of the system.

Overview of Tenkatōitsu (Part 2)

A Shaky Start with Yamazaki

As mentioned in the previous entry in this series, I started playing the Battle of Yamazaki to learn the rules. That decision was probably a mistake, since reading through the scenarios should have given me a hint that the second scenario described, the Battle of Nagakute, has far less scenario-specific rules and fewer chits for both sides. The Battle of Yamazaki is also the only scenario to use the fortress rules to address the siege of Shōryūji Castle. These siege rules feature a small, separate map board as well as completely different combat resolution procedures. While playing through the fortress siege, part of me wanted to hurry up and get back to the more familiar combat outside the fortress. Only when the siege was complete and the losses counted did the fortress rules click completely.

Painting of Akechi Mitsuhide

It seems like it might be tough for the defending player to stop Hashiba Hideyoshi’s troops from easily winning the scenario, but I am already thinking of strategies that would give Akechi Mitsuhide a fighting chance. The Battle Plans chosen at the beginning of the game are vital; the Akechi player would likely benefit from any Battle Plan that allows the use of Defensive Positions (special markers that give Clans that remain stationary combat bonuses when defending).

We will have to come back to the Battle of Yamazaki. I made so many mistakes while learning the rules that it would be unfair to draw any conclusive thoughts about the scenario yet. Until then, we will take a look at the second scenario, which was still a learning process but arguably went far smoother than Yamazaki. If nothing else, at least the first scenario followed the historical reality fairly closely: Hashiba handily defeated Akechi.

The Battle of Nagakute (1584)

Let us start off by saying that the battle results did not reflect the historical reality. Ikeda Tsuneoki managed to secure a solid victory against Tokugawa Ieyasu, while the real Ikeda had his head carried off as a trophy. How exactly did that happen in the game? Well, readers will probably not be surprised to learn that mistakes were made.

Painting of Ikeda Tsuneoki

Ikeda Tsuneoki and his Clan start the map in the south-eastern corner, near Iwasaki Castle. The rest of the troops for the player taking the role of Ikeda’s side (really, Hashiba Hideyoshi’s side) are spread across the long road that snakes from south-east to north-west. The Clans at the far end of this road are extremely distant from Ikeda, meaning that the player will likely have difficulty activating these Clans. I completely failed to follow this rule, and Ikeda’s Clans were freely activated. Oops! This mistake may not seem terribly significant, but it likely gave Ikeda a huge advantage. The Ikeda player has more units than the Tokugawa player; the fact that the Ikeda player cannot easily give his most distant Clans new Orders means that the Tokugawa player has a chance to even the odds numbers-wise.

All of Ikeda’s Clans begin the scenario with a Regroup Order, meaning that the player will likely want to change as many of these Orders as quickly as possible. Clans in Regroup suffer a pretty serious penalty in combat. To make matters worse, they can be forced to withdraw when enemy units get too close to them. Units that are forced to retreat off the map (a fairly real risk) are eliminated from the game entirely, possibly giving the opponent Victory Points in the process. This scenario really teaches the value of positioning. It was fascinating to see the fight from the Tokugawa player’s perspective: moving units close to enemy units in Regroup pushed the enemy away, no combat required!

One Victory Point is awarded for every point of Elan that either player is able to eliminate. Not all units have Elan. The units with an Elan score of zero are thus “disposable,” or at least should probably be used on the frontlines. They can, after all, still inflict damage on enemy units. The player using them does not have to worry overly much if they are defeated.

Five VPs are awarded to the player who controls Iwasaki Castle at the end of the game. The Ikeda player will likely easily capture the caslte within the first few turns. It makes one wonder: how feasible would it be for the Tokugawa player to focus on its recapture? A Battle Plan allowing for fast movement would be necessary. Those five VPs might be worth the effort!

As with the general rules, one VP is awarded per Bundori point (these points are accumulated by eliminating defeated enemy leaders). Of course, Bundori points only count as VPs at the end of the game, and do not make the VP tracker increase during the game.

The final VP totals are calculated at the end of the game. A victorious player must be in the lead by two points, otherwise the game is a draw.

Finally, the Ikeda player can win automatically if they can defeat Tokugawa Ieyasu himself. Interestingly, the Tokugawa player cannot win automatically by defeating Ikeda Tsuneoki; this rule seems to reflect both leaders’ relative importance. One point that bears mentioning: Tokugawa Ieyasu begins the scenario off-map, and does not enter the game until at least Turn #3. There seems to be nothing in the rules that forces his Clan to enter the map at all, making one wonder if it would be necessary to force the Tokugawa player to bring his Clan in. Otherwise, the Ikeda player would not have an opportunity to defeat Tokugawa Ieyasu himself. Not bringing his Clan in would likely be a mistake for the Tokugawa player, however, considering how few units the Tokugawa side has.

Ukiyo-e of Tokugawa Ieyasu, Utagawa Yoshitora, 1873

I tried playing an aggressive Ikeda intent on getting Tokugawa’s head, but it proved challenging to do so. Ii Naomasa’s Clan was able to hedge off Ikeda’s attack, and the two of them wound up in a stand-off in the forested mountain path in the center of the map for a few turns.

Some Lessons Learned

Combat is dangerous for both attacker and defender. It is quite common for both sides to take damage. Some attacks that seem like certain victory can go horribly wrong. It is also dangerous to let enemies surround one’s units; a unit without a path of retreat has a higher risk of taking step losses (units have four steps, from strongest to weakest: good order, shaken, disorganized, and exhausted).

It is sometimes worth changing a unit’s Order from Regroup to Defend and then wait a turn to change it from Defend to something else. Changing an Order from Regroup to Attack, for instance, requires a 5 or 6 on a roll of a six-sided die; not exactly great odds. Units under a Defend Order are also able to avoid forced advances after combat, which can quickly put an attacker in a bad situation.

Battle Plans and Tactics are key. Both sides chose Battle Plans with decent special abilities, but the Tactics available were lacking. Both sides would have benefitted greatly from having some Totsugeki (“charge”) Tactics to use. Using Tactics confers a great number of general benefits:

• units can be given Tactics and placed directly into the bowl even if they are on the Delay Tracker;
• units that are not able to use their Tactics because they were not pulled during that turn are still able to use their tactics the next time they are activated;
• and units that have Tactics and were not activated before a turn ends are automatically placed back into the bowl.

These bonuses are in addition to the specific benefits that the tactics also provide. Unfortunately, it is probably difficult to know which Battle Plan would be best for any given side in the scenarios until one actually plays through the scenario once. It also depends on what kind of play style a player prefers, since some scenarios do have multiple avenues to victory.

Playing through Nagakute still took a considerable amount of time: probably more than ten hours in total, spread over several sessions. Thanks to a greater understanding of the system rules, I had more fun with Nagakute overall. There was less need to reference the rulebook and even the combat resolution became second nature pretty quickly. If two units are fighting in Ransen (“mêlée”), for example, I know that it is a fight that involves comparing both units’ Elan and Masse totals and adding the resulting modifier (either positive or negative) to the red dice result. There could be additional modifiers to the blue dice result depending on the terrain, units’ states, and other factors. Understanding (and memorizing) these rules has made the game play quite smoothly. For anyone else concerned about a steep learning curve for this genre of games, fear not! At least for Tenkatōitsu, the rules start to become second-nature with a bit of experience playing. Teaching someone else the rules feels possible. The final scenario also seems less daunting.

Onwards to Sekigahara

With the Battle of Nagakute complete (at least for now), we have the big one left to explore: Sekigahara. This scenario is particularly exciting since it features a betrayal mechanic. Many of Ishida Mitsunari’s forces switched sides during the battle, ensuring Tokugawa Ieyasu’s victory. It will likely take a while to finish this scenario as it has more chits than the other two by a fairly wide margin.

Studying the map prior to setting it up raises one concern: why is one of the corners so dark? A black hex grid on green-so-dark-as-to-be-black may make navigating that corner an unnecessary challenge. We will have to wait and see whether it proves to be as troublesome as a cursory glance might indicate.

Overview of Tenkatōitsu (Part 1)

Diving into Board Wargaming Feet First

In the overview of Unicornus Knights, I mentioned how that game is connected to the board wargame genre. Tabletop role-playing can trace its history directly back to wargaming. This genre of game has fascinated me since hearing about its connection to TRPG history and seeing videos of some specific board wargames. Unicornus Knights could be considered an introductory game since it features many mechanics that are commonly found therein, such as counter-stacking and combat results tables. My interest in board wargames hinges greatly on the topic or theme of the game itself. Unicornus Knights, featuring a typical high fantasy theme – albeit one viewed through a Japanese game designer lens – is greatly appealing. Which brings us to the topic of this overview: Tenkatōitsu, a game designed by François Vander Muelen and published by Hexasim in 2016.

Box art by Michaël Monfront (2016)

Tenkatōitsu (天下統一) can be translated as “Uniting the Country,” and refers to the unification of Japan after the Warring States period (戦国時代, sengoku jidai, AD 1467-1615). The name of the game was clearly chosen because the game itself is focused on three major battles relating to the eventual unification of Japan under the Tokugawa shogunate. The battles are:

• the Battle of Yamazaki (1582);
• the Battle of Nagakute (1584);
• and the Battle of Sekigahara (1600).

The Battle of Sekigahara in particular is probably the most well-known battle outside of Japan.

Reading about these battles reminds me how little I know about the specific military details regarding this time period. It is one thing to have an understanding about how war was waged in Japan at this time; it is quite another to know who the specific leaders were and how they contributed to a given battle. For instance, the Battle of Yamazaki involved two military leaders: Akechi Mitsuhide and Hashiba Hideyoshi. Without looking up additional information, I would not be able to comment on either one’s military prowess. As an aside, the game uses the name “Hashiba Hideyoshi” but he had many names throughout his life, including “Toyotomi Hideyoshi” (a name that is, arguably, far more familiar). At the time of this battle, he would not have taken the clan name Toyotomi yet.

We will return to this discussion of the actual history of the battles below. Before we get to that, we will take a look at what comes in the box, how the game is played in general, and take a brief look at a new player’s experience with the first scenario.

The Components

The game includes:

• three maps, one for each battle, on two sheets of poster paper (84 by 60 centimetres, approximately 33 by 23.5 inches);
• four counter sheets, with a total of 534 counters (also called “chits”);
• several play-aid cards printed on glossy card stock;
• four small, six-sided dice in two colors;
• two Battle Plan sheets;
  
• and one 20-page rulebook.

Overall, the production quality of the components is quite high. The counters have rounded corners, meaning there is little need for trimming. Some counters are only written in French but their meaning is usually easy to discern. Yet it would have been nice to have a complete list of the chits in the rulebook with a brief description of their purpose in English. Scenario-specific counters sometimes have their scenario name printed on their reverse side; otherwise they can be differentiated at a glance by their color.

The maps have pretty thick creases, making a sheet of plexiglass over top recommended. The counters move acceptably without such a setup.

The rulebook features a fair number of pictures and examples of play. It is translated from French to English and there are a few instances of clunky translation and poor proof-reading. The instances are akin to a handful of typos in native English games. All things considered, the rules are quite readable.

When set up, this game takes up a fair amount of table space.

How to Play

This section will briefly outline some of the general rules to give a reader a rough idea of what the mechanics are like; it is not intended to be a substitute for reading the rulebook. It is also a good exercise to see how well I understand and can explain the rules to others.

The unit chits tend to be referred to as “Clans,” since they represent the various clans that made up each side’s fighting force. Clans in this period did not always cooperate with one another, even if they were ostensibly on the “same side” of a larger conflict. This fact is represented nicely in the mechanics: when trying to have units from different clans make an attack together, there is a chance that they will not be able to fight alongside each other. In one of the scenarios, there are even rules for certain clans to betray their side completely. What fun!

Clan chits feature a fair amount of information. There are dots to indicate their firepower strength (meant to represent either bows or firearms), and two numbers indicating Elan and Masse; all of these are frequently used to resolve combat. Some Clans have one or more lines indicating their leadership power. Movement capabilities are determined by a Clan’s Order (see below for more about Orders) rather than a static stat on the chit. Finally, Clan chits produce a Zone of Control (ZoC) in the hexes adjacent to them. This ZoC dictates where enemy Clan chits may move, among other things.

All Clans must be given Orders, which include: Move, Attack, Defend, and Regroup. Once an Order has been given to a Clan, it can be difficult to change it to another one. This mechanic is intended to represent the difficulty of commanding armies in this period. After all, there were no radios to ensure troops had up-to-date instructions.

Tenkatōitsu uses a chit-pull system. There are five chits that must be pulled from an opaque container (referred to as “the bowl”) before a turn ends. These five chits represent phases during which both players can activate relevant clans. For instance, when the Initiative chit is pulled, players have the option to try to change certain Clans’ Orders. When the Movement chit is pulled, all Clans with a Move Order can be activated and move up to their movement allowance.

At the start of each turn, players roll to determine their Command Points, which can be spent to activate units from their reserves to be put into the bowl. The chit-pull system is interesting because there is a decent chance that not all of a player’s Clan chits will be pulled during a turn (remember that a new turn begins when all of the obligatory chits are pulled). These Clans then must pass a test to see what happened to the messenger trying to give them their orders. Frequently the Clan will simply be placed on the Delay Tracker and be automatically put into the bowl after waiting a number of turns; other times the Clan will be placed back in the player’s reserves (meaning they will have to spend Command Points to activate them again).

Command Points can also be saved to initiate a player’s Battle Plan. Battle Plans are special collections of unique Orders; these Orders are available in limited amounts, but are typically more useful than the standard Orders. Battle Plans are chosen at the beginning of the game. In some scenarios, the Battle Plan is already active when gameplay starts. Otherwise a player must make a test to see if they can successfully implement their plan. The test is a roll of 2d6 compared to the amount of points currently set aside for the plan. These points carry over from turn to turn, so players will likely wait a few turns before making this attempt. Failed tests force players to subtract the difference from their total points set aside, meaning that it could greatly delay their plan activation.

Combat can happen at many different times during a turn, including but not limited to: the obligatory combat phases for either side, when a Clan is in an Enemy Zone of Control (EZoC), and when a Clan is under an Order to attack.

Combat resolution depends on a great deal of variables. A Clan’s current Order has an impact on what kind of attack they do during combat. For instance, a Clan under an Attack Order will use the “assault” (shingeki) rules for resolving the fight. If the target of this attack is also under an Attack Order, it will use “counter-attack” (hangeki) rules. These different types of attack change how unit stats affect the dice roll. Units under a Move Order, for example, will be generally less effective in combat than those under different Orders.

The combat resolution table appears intimidating at first glance. Results are typically displayed in the format: bX^y, where b is the attacker or defender, X is a step-loss applied at b’s discretion, and y is a step-loss applied to other units belonging to b involved in the combat (if there are any). Units can also be forced to retreat or eliminated entirely depending on the results.

A Rookie’s Experience with the First Scenario

My advice to anyone like me who went head-first into a medium-hard board wargame with hundreds of counters: take it slow and do not sweat mistakes. I am playing solo, with the thought that someday my familiarity with the rules will make it easy to teach someone to play the game. The game box indicates a relatively high solo suitability, likely thanks to the chit-pull system.

A painting by Yoshitoshi from 1885 depicting a young Hashiba Hideyoshi

So far, only the counters for the first scenario have been punched. Organization is a key step to making life easier for playing these types of games. Storing the chits in containers based on their scenario appears to be the most convenient approach.

Turns take a while, at least as one learns the rules. There can be a fair amount of flipping through the rulebook to remind oneself of specific cases. Writing this overview is, as mentioned above, good practice for seeing where the gaps in my comprehension are. Creating a custom cheat sheet for my own personal use might be ideal until the rules are generally second-nature.

Sometimes it is easy to forget steps. For instance, there are two mountain areas in the Battle of Yamazaki that provide special bonuses if they can be captured. I frequently forgot to apply these bonuses when they took effect. In addition to the cheat sheet, some procedure checklists may prove helpful.

Going through the first scenario has taken roughly six hours to reach Turn #9 (out of a possible 22). Familiarity with the rules as well as getting into a good flow will most assuredly knock down that play-time.

Combat felt complex at first as there are many moving parts. It was also hard to remember that during certain combat situations, all units currently in a Zone of Control needed to be attacked. This rule means that sometimes the attacker may be forced to make an attack that is ill-advised. Certain terrain types offer the feature called “non-obligatory attack,” meaning that units do not need to make an attack if the player does not wish to.

As far as considering a strategy or plan of attack goes, that went out the window as I tried to make decisions that seemed to make sense. Following the rules as closely as possible took up a lot of energy. It is challenging to figure out where to engage enemy Clans when the combat rules are still not firmly understood.

Ultimately, it has been fun to see how well I can figure out a board wargame, especially one that is fairly complicated. This genre of game is definitely not for everyone. As a player, it can sometimes feel like the game is tasking one with the number crunching that goes on underneath the surface of a computer game like Civilization. The arithmetic tends to be simple, of course, but there is also a lot of variables to keep in one’s head. Yet that level of detail (crunch?) is what has attracted players to this genre for decades. It becomes easier to see how fans of wargames were responsible for the creation of the first tabletop role-playing games.

Tenkatōitsu has been on my radar for several years now. It is still going to take more time to completely learn the game and that is perfectly fine. It must be emphasized that we live in a relatively convenient time to play these types of games. There is an abundance of online resources to learn the rules, as well as communities of players from all over the world to ask questions.

Tackling a game like this one will hopefully carry benefits for tabletop role-playing as well. If I can understand the crunch of this game, managing the relatively simple rules in Basic Fantasy RPG should be a cake-walk.

The History

Map of Japan circa 1582 made by Zakuragi (via Wikipedia)

Some players seek out board wargames that are extremely accurate simulations of the factual events, while others simply enjoy the theme and mechanics of the system and do not care too much about how accurate any given title is or not. These preferences are both perfectly valid, of course. Board wargames are always going to have a hard time simulating real life since they are, at the end of the day, abstract representations of events. Take, for instance, what each counter of a unit represents in Tenkatōitsu: the number of soldiers varies depending on the scenario, but is usually around several hundred men.

What are the objectives of the board wargame system in general? Is the designer trying to make a truly accurate simulation at the expense of fun gameplay? Is gameplay more important? Or perhaps somewhere in the middle of these two extremes?

When it comes to the details, it is tricky when we discuss battles that happened in the Warring States period. While there are records of what happened, they are less detailed than other historical periods. For example, battles from the American Civil War frequently have extremely detailed records which we can reference. Obviously there is still much that has to be left to any given game designer’s imagination. What is the best way, for instance, to design mechanics that will allow Hashiba Hideyoshi’s armies to take control of the nearby mountain top like he did in real life? The solution that Muelen came up with seems to satisfy both game mechanics and the historical reality.

At the moment, I would need to do far more reading about the Battle of Yamazaki, not to mention the other battles, before being able to comment confidently on Tenkatōitsu’s accuracy. With that said and based on what little I do know, the scenario appears to be accurate in broad strokes. For example, Hashiba Hideyoshi begins the scenario off the map, and his troops must march from one side of the board to face off Akechi Mitsuhide’s forces. In the historical record, Hashiba’s troops did rush to meet Akechi and were likely exhausted when they arrived on the battlefield. The player in charge of Hashiba’s side will have difficulty activating the chosen Battle Plan, since Hashiba suffers a penalty which is meant to represent the difficulty of implementing a plan after a forced march. Another general point of accuracy: Hashiba’s troops out-numbered Akechi’s, which is reflected in the amount of Hashiba’s Clan chits. One point in the game that I will need to investigate further is that Akechi’s troops seem to be relatively weaker in general compared to Hashiba’s. Does this gameplay element reflect what we know about the real quality of Akechi’s soldiers? Or is this part purely a game balance decision? It may even be related to the previous point regarding Hashiba’s numerical superiority.

We will return to Tenkatōitsu sometime in the future. There are still two more scenarios to explore. It is hard to decide if it is better to try the first scenario a second time or to dive into one of the other two.

Bibliography

Muelen, Françoise Vander. Tenkatōitsu. Translated by Jean-Michel Doan. N.p.: Hexasim, 2016.

Inspiriation Round-Up Summer 2021

Bones of Contention – reviews for the rest of us

A group of people in the tabletop RPG scene – some of whom are already in the recommended blogs list here on Torch in Hand – have come together to form the Skeleton Crew. They intend to review tabletop RPG material with a different angle than the typical review blog: the GM and the players can share their thoughts about any given adventure module that they play together. It gives readers a variety of perspectives rather than just one.

It may prove especially beneficial to adventure writers, bother professional and hobbyists. What should be included in material to be useful? What kinds of settings will engage the players? What exactly makes an adventure great for both GM and player? If material is working for the players, but cumbersome or annoying to use by the GM, what can be done to fix it on the fly?

Really looking forward to see what comes of the crew and their project.

Throne of Salt – keep those scraps to make “Slushpiles”

Dan D. of the Throne of Salt has been compiling what he calls “Slushpiles” since 2018. In his first Slushpile, he explains: “I accumulate ideas like pockets accrue lint, which means my apartment is filled with notebooks and scraps of paper covered in ideas for story and game material that might never see the light of day.” To ensure that the ideas aren’t doomed to such a fate, they’re collected and shared in these piles of slush.

It’s handy to see a collection of ideas that aren’t necessarily polished. His latest Slushpile is an eclectic bunch of concepts, free of any kind of theme or unifying idea. Anyone in the hobby that maintains a public blog should be encouraged to share drafts in a similar vein. Just because the ideas aren’t fully fleshed out doesn’t mean they won’t inspire or prove useful.

Ruth White – master of electronic weirdness

Ever since playing games made by Stephen Gill-Murphy, I have greatly enjoyed music composed by Ruth White. In her 1969 album Flowers of Evil, she blends poetry and strange sounds to create some truly haunting pieces. Her use of electronic instruments in Short Circuits from 1970 makes even classical compositions otherworldly to our ears. A particular favorite is White’s interpretation of Isaac Albéniz’s Asturias (Leyenda). A new campaign idea is forming in my head based almost exclusively on using this piece of music as the campaign’s theme or leitmotif.

Overview of Unicornus Knights

We can trace the history of tabletop role-playing games directly back to wargaming. Many of the first tabletop role-players started as wargaming enthusiasts, and only became interested in tabletop role-playing because some players wondered what it would be like to control a single character rather than entire armies. It’s important to bear this history in mind, especially when we examine older role-playing systems, resources, and even board games from this time. In many of these older works, there’s an assumption that players are already familiar with wargaming mechanics.[1]

The wargaming hobby itself is rich in styles and systems. I’m particularly interested in board wargames. These games frequently feature hex-grid maps, square cardboard counters that represent units, and combat results tables. I’ve watched plenty of reviews of titles from this sub-genre, but simply couldn’t decide which game seemed the most appealing. Many of these titles focus on real-world battles or conflicts. While I can understand the appeal of historical scenarios, including conflicts from antiquity (or even as recent as the Napoleonic Wars), I’m less interested in games based off modern conflicts. The fantasy and sci-fi genres are far and away more intriguing. If it wasn’t so expensive and difficult to find, I would absolutely love to try the board wargame adaption of Starship Troopers (1976). If there was ever a game that needed a reprint, that is one of them.

All of this preamble brings us to Unicornus Knights (2017) made by Kanai Seiji and Kuroda “Kuro” Yasushi. Although it doesn’t have the traditional square counters, it still features an equivalent to combat results tables. I heard about this game through Geek Gamers. The setting appealed to me (a fairly typical medieval fantasy kingdom viewed through an anime lens) as well as the cooperative nature of the game. The premise is simple: Princess Cornelia is the last of the royal family alive after an invasion into her kingdom by the Emperor and his massive armies. Cornelia vows to march to the capital to reclaim her rightful throne, or die trying. It’s up to the players, who take on the role of characters with their own abilities and strengths, to protect Cornelia as she marches through the lands. Cornelia moves according to a simple set of rules and generally doesn’t care about her own safety. Although she always defeats enemies she encounters, she usually doesn’t avoid any of the enemies’ attacks, meaning that she will be quickly eliminated if the players aren’t careful.

Box cover, Alderac Entertainment Group, 2017

Although I’ve played through the game twice now, bear in mind that I was playing it solo and have not yet had the opportunity to play it with a group of people. This overview can be treated as a review of its solo suitability. Expect an addendum once I have the chance to run it with a group.

The box predicts the game will have a 90 minute running time, and that might be true after playing it a few times. Setup alone can take a while. The board needs to be put together randomly by placing the hexagonal tiles, enemy characters must be assembled along with their armies, player characters’ starting armies and supplies must be gathered, and the various decks of cards must be shuffled. The game has a relatively large footprint once the board and all of the character and enemy information cards are placed on the table.

The game is divided into ten rounds. If Cornelia is not sitting on the capital space by the end of the tenth round, the players lose. At the beginning of each round, an event card is drawn and resolved. These cards are always bad news for the players. The players then take their turns. On their turn, a player can draw a card from the support deck, move their character, collect supplies from a space, recruit soldiers from a space, and send soldiers and supplies to another player. These options all require one action each. Players have different amounts of actions per turn based on the total number of players in the game.

Most characters, including Cornelia, need supplies to move. Characters moving around with many soldiers will quickly come to a halt due to the cost of movement. The game is deeply concerned with logistics. Although this mechanic can sound tedious in writing, in practice there is a certain elegance to it. It makes each turn feel like a puzzle that needs to be solved. How can we ensure Cornelia doesn’t run off ahead? Limit how many supplies she has. How can we get these armies to where they’re needed? Send them back and forth between characters.

The game excels at giving players enough options that seem to be equally beneficial at any given moment. Should we collect supplies to be used sometime in the future? Perhaps the next support card in the deck will be particularly useful? It’s also effective at making players consider future happenings. Where is Cornelia likely to move? What can we do now to ensure her safety?

Combat involving characters other than the Princess is determined by dice rolling. The following example details a player making an attack — the rules are quite different when the enemy attacks a player. An attacking player character generally needs to have an army of soldiers with them to make an attack. Each soldier counts as one battle die. The player then checks to see if the target is sitting on a space with terrain benefits. Every point of defense subtracts one battle die. Once the amount of battle dice are determined, the player rolls the dice and compares the results to their attack results chart on the character information card. The results are divided into three possibilities: hits, misses, and penalties. The next step took me a while to figure out, but I think I might finally have a firm grasp on it. The target armies should be totaled up to determine their combat power. For our example, let’s assume that the target is composed of three soldiers. That means they have a combat power of 3. Even though the player is the one initiating the attack, the target can still inflict that 3 damage to the player. In order to negate that damage, the player takes the battle dice results and assigns them to the soldiers. We’ll assume that the player rolled four dice which resulted in: one hit, one miss, and two penalties. The one hit and one miss can be assigned to the target. These negate 2 points of that 3 damage. The two penalties, on the other hand, would inflict damage on the player character, so they are discarded instead. Ultimately then, the player managed to eliminate two of the three enemy soldiers, and now has to suffer 1 point of damage. Damage can be divided as the player sees fit between their character or soldiers.

Whenever an enemy character encounters a player character (or the Princess) for the first time, a fate card is drawn. These characters become “bound by fate,” which is determined by the card. The fate cards can be beneficial (the enemy character immediately becomes an ally) or detrimental (there was a trap, and the player character must take damage). Some enemy characters have “no fate” printed on their information card, meaning that a fate card is not drawn for them; these enemy characters typically already have some sort of built-in equivalent to fate explained on their card (the Black Knight, for instance, will automatically become an ally if he is defeated in combat). The fate mechanic helps keep each game fresh and adds twists to the narrative developed through play.

After the players have moved, the enemy phase starts. Enemy soldiers will automatically fight any adjacent player characters. Some enemy characters will do likewise, and others will either move closer towards nearby player characters or never move at all.

Finally, before a round is finished, Cornelia takes her turn. She can take three actions and can either move or collect supplies. She will always prefer to move and moves to the space with the lowest movement cost that puts her closer to the capital. There are edge cases in which two options may be equally viable; any of these situations are left to the players to determine what she does.

This game is difficult to win. It’s definitely a game that should be premised with the mantra: “losing is fun!”[2] Due to the random nature of the board, there are many board configurations that make it difficult to adequately protect Cornelia. Moreover, each enemy character has unique abilities, with some of them being especially dangerous. The Black Drake, for example, inflicts double damage in combat. The Chancellor’s ability changes the victory conditions: put simply, the players cannot win the game as long as he is left alive. Although winning is quite challenging, there’s still plenty of fun to be had seeing how far Cornelia can get. Every small victory against the enemy feels rewarding.

One mechanic that alleviates some of the difficulty is the disposable nature of the players’ characters; even if a player’s character is eliminated, they can simply pick one of the unused characters and join the fray again immediately (the rules are explicit in this case: a new character chosen in this fashion can be placed on any unoccupied space on the board — even in enemy territory!). It’s likely that victorious players would frequently take advantage of this mechanic.

The components are generally well-made. The area tiles are thick cardboard with a vinyl coating. There is at least one tile that has a misprint on it: all other road spaces are -1 to movement cost, but a single road space is inexplicably +1 to movement cost. Players could decide for themselves whether there’s an in-universe explanation for it. The various tokens, which are the most commonly used component, are also thick cardboard. They’re satisfying to handle and place on the board. Prospective players should be aware that there is stacking in this game, which may be unappealing to some.[3] The various decks of cards and character information cards are a little thinner than normal playing cards; it would’ve been better if they hadn’t made them so thin.

The rulebook is large (about 11" x 11" or 28cm x 28cm) and full-color; it certainly looks nice, but there are some issues with it. Echoing sentiments from others online, I found the printed rulebook that comes with the game to be a little vague about certain situations. Fortunately, there is a revised version available as a PDF on the publisher’s website that clears up some of the ambiguities. Even with the revised rules, there are still plenty of situations that seem to be left up to player interpretation. That’s not a major issue because the core rules (player actions, Cornelia’s movement, and combat) are generally explained well enough that leaving some of the situations up to player fiat is fine. For instance, when an event card declares that all misses rolled this round should be instead treated as penalties, should an ally’s ability that treats all misses as hits be affected as well? I would lean towards ruling in favor of the players, but I have a feeling that the opposite is the intention. [Update 2021/03/30: The back of the printed rulebook includes a section of rule clarifications, including a brief mention of this exact scenario. Surprisingly, the rules side with the players in this situation. Although there are ambiguities in the printed and revised rulebooks, this is not one of them. The preceding paragraph has been left unedited as a reminder for myself to completely read the rules before critiquing them.]

One design choice that is particularly frustrating is the use of the shield icon to mean different things. Its use to represent defense points on spaces is fairly straightforward, but its usage on player character and enemy information cards is counterintuitive. For the player character cards, the shield number represents the maximum number of armies that the player can control. For the enemy cards, the shield icon represents the combat power of the enemy character (i.e., this number should be added to the number of soldiers that the enemy has with them) and is only used when the enemy initiates an attack. Different icons would have made it more clear that these numbers are entirely different mechanics.

The game is quite enjoyable for even a single player. Although there’s a lot going on, it wasn’t too challenging to get a handle of the general flow of the game. Combat is definitely the most vaguely treated subject in the printed rules, but it feels natural after going through it a few times. It definitely deserves emphasizing that victory will be elusive. Players should focus on the enjoyment of deciding the best choice of action for any given turn, especially considering that the random event cards can quickly change the situation. One such card makes all of the enemy characters aggressive, meaning that they will automatically move towards the closest player characters that are on the same area or adjacent area. Players should keep in mind that their characters are expendable, and be willing to take risks accordingly.

As someone still new to board wargames, Unicornus Knights has been a good starting point. It’s less complicated than some of the other options out there while offering enough crunch to cut my teeth on. It might not be the best introductory board wargame in general (the rules are perhaps a little too vague sometimes), but it’s definitely fun and lends itself well to role-playing. One thing that might help when I introduce it to new players is a homebrew player’s aid that clearly lays out the steps to follow during each round.

I’m excited to share this game with friends who are interested in tabletop role-playing. It has also left me eager to continue exploring this sphere of gaming that tabletop role-playing can trace its roots to.

Notes

1. For more detailed history about the development of the role-playing hobby, see Jon Peterson’s blog. I’ve yet to find and read a copy of his book Playing at the World (2012), but I’ve heard good things.
2. I borrow this mantra from the computer game Dwarf Fortress (2006).
3. Stacking is a mechanic common to board wargames in which soldier tokens can be stacked on top of each other; in other words, more than one token can occupy a single space. It can be tough to manage when games feature hundreds of tokens. In Unicornus Knights, most stacks don’t get higher than eight soldiers (which translates into four physical tokens).
   

Bibliography

Kanai, Seiji and Yasushi Kuroda. Unicornus Knights. Translated by Ziemon and Akira John Sugimoto. San Clemente: Alderac Entertainment Group, 2017.

Untitled Sci-Fi Work in Progress (Part 2)

I continue to add to this project when inspiration strikes. Every once and a while a particularly interesting idea will grab me and it renews my interest in the whole undertaking. It looks like it could easily balloon in scope, so it might be smart to set out some goals to keep in mind. After all, it’s better to focus on a shorter, well-edited project rather than get overwhelmed and wind up abandoning the entire thing.

Tentative goals (to be adjusted as necessary):

• Complete the town location which will include: a partially keyed map; a description of some important locals and establishments; and a list of encounters.
• Include at least two well-defined factions with understandable goals and schemes.
• Write at least one town outskirts encounter list.
• Complete one “dungeon” or point of interest, including a keyed map and list of encounters.
• Include some simple line art to set the tone and/or help spur readers’ interest in the setting.
• Avoid using the open game license.
  

The above seems to be fairly reasonable. My opposition to the open game license is nothing more than an attempt to make something that doesn’t rely on its legal framework. Shouldn’t be difficult, right? Can’t decide how many monster stat blocks to include. Obviously any original monsters will have their stats explained. But if I don’t use the open game license, I’d have to come up with stats for standard creatures. Would readers be frustrated if an encounter table entry simply said, “Giant Bees, 1d8” and didn’t include a stat block for them? It might be more important to avoid “standard” encounters anyway.

For the final version, I intend to do the artwork myself. For the time being, however, I have included a little bit of public domain artwork in the draft to keep the theme in mind. It also helps with planning the future layout. Below is one such piece of ostensibly public domain artwork. The original source remains ambiguous. I suspect that it might be from Buck Rogers, in which case the public domain status could be in question.

Some excerpts

Below are some bits and pieces taken from the current draft. Everything is subject to change. If you’d ever want to be a player in this setting, you may wish to avoid reading anything below!

Untitled Sci-Fi Work in Progress

The other day, I browsed the Internet for a freely available adventure setting that takes inspiration from sci-fi B-movies. Unfortunately, the search was not fruitful. Since then, my mind has been churning with ideas. I’ve even started to write a draft that is slowly taking shape.

Below is a blurb that both players and Game Masters would be encouraged to read to sell them on the adventure:

A haunting, piercing whistle can be heard on the wind. Meteors of all colors streak across the sky — even visible during the daytime. Something weird is going on in the Valley Under Mesa; the inhabitants of the Settlement can feel it. They would know, for outsiders always comment on the strangeness of the Valley. Those that stay and call the Settlement home are accustomed to a certain level of the unusual. The recent events are making even the inhabitants nervous.
There are already rumors of flying disks, self-replicating creatures made of metal, and bizarre other-world humans in tight pants. What made a blacksmith’s tools stick to the ceiling? Why are the royal guardsmen grumbling about missing comrades? How did Farmer Luem’s cow get that extra head?
Those in the Valley (and the areas beyond it) are used to magic. The practitioners of that art are common enough. These happenings are different. They’re something more than just magic.

Things are bound to change a lot between now and a completed draft (I’m not sold on the town being called “the Settlement” for one), but the above should give an idea of what I’m going for here. The plan is to share this adventure freely once it’s finished.

There’s still lots to be done before the draft could even be shared for feedback, but it’s great to see the ideas on (digital) paper.

Comparing Two Rules Lite Systems

How does Basic Fantasy RPG compare to White Box: Fantastic Medieval Adventure Game? 

I’ve frequently mentioned my preference for Basic Fantasy RPG. It’s a system that everyone should at least check out for the plethora of freely available resources. Recently, I came across White Box: Fantastic Medieval Adventure Game (WBFMAG) edited by Charlie Mason. It’s his effort to re-organize Matt Finch and Marv Breig’s Swords and Sorcery: WhiteBox (SaSWB). As their names imply, SaSWB and WBFMAG are based on the original white box set of the most popular role-playing game. It follows, then, that BFRPG and WBFMAG are attempting to capture the game styles of two pretty different rulesets. We should be careful about comparing these systems because their aims are quite different. Below we’ll have a brief look to see what these systems have in common and what sets them apart.

Both systems are available at no cost in PDF. They’re also sold at (or near) cost in print. WBFMAG is available at DriveThruRPG; the cheaper print-on-demand options can be obtained on the most popular online retailer. For both systems, all of the core rules are contained in one book.

William McAusland did almost all of the interior art, giving the entire book a consistent look. It’s worth grabbing a copy of the PDF just to have a look at the impressive line art. The artwork in BFRPG, on the other hand, is a community effort; in other words, there’s a wide variety of styles. Not to imply that having variety is bad, of course. There’s a certain charm to such an eclectic collection of artwork. Nevertheless, it does sacrifice some consistency. Furthermore, the layout of WBFMAG is clean and aesthetically pleasing. Although BFRPG is readable and laid out nicely, I must admit that I consider its overall look to be merely serviceable. Ultimately, readers will have to decide for themselves which aesthetics that they prefer.

What are the most notable rule differences? 

The following is a short list of some of the major differences. Both systems are based more on GM fiat rather than explicit rules. This list is not exhaustive; it’s merely an attempt to show how these systems approach things differently.

• Most character classes only have experience level advancement details up to level 10.
• There is a brief discussion about alignment but it’s still left largely up to GM discretion.
• There are slightly more complex rules for experience point bonuses based on class and creature choice.
• Thief abilities are based on 1d6 rather than 1d100.
  
• Descending armor class is preferred. Ascending armor class (called AAC here) is included as an option.
• Most damage is 1d6, with only few exceptions. There are optional rules to make all damage 1d6 to keep in line with the source material.
• Initiative is based on sides rather than individuals.
• There are rules for jousting.
• Monster stat blocks are less detailed; there’s no line for treasure, morale rating, nor number of creatures appearing.
• Monsters have a “hit dice equivalent” stat that is based on a creature’s abilities and which is intended to help GMs determine a monster’s difficulty.
  

Which is better for newcomers to the hobby? 

BFRPG’s chapter for GMs is much more helpful for rookies, as it includes more detailed instructions on how to construct both dungeon and wilderness adventures. The same sections in WBFMAG are too brief and vague in comparison. A short dungeon scenario would have helped as well.

WBFMAG lacks the community support of BFRPG. There are a lot of modules, extra rules, and all sorts of other handy resources available on the BFRPG website. That’s no fault of the folks making WBFMAG, of course. BFRPG was a community effort from the start, and has been around for far longer.

In the end, I’m enamored with the presentation of WBFMAG. If new players ask me to recommend systems, I will definitely encourage them to check out both. WBFMAG’s more consistent look may win them over to an old school, rules lite style of play.

Bibliography

Mason, Charlie, ed. White Box: Fantastic Medieval Adventure Game. Self-published, PDF, 2017 (2nd printing).

Overview of Make You Kingdom!!

Tabletop RPGs in Japan are typically referred to as “table talk RPGs” to emphasize the role that conversation plays in any given game. The most popular system available in Japan is probably Sword World RPG (SWRPG), which is based off of the franchise Record of the Lodoss War. The latter began life as a collection of published play reports. In recent years, the Japanese localization of Call of Cthulhu has also been pretty popular.

Today we’ll be looking at a system with a multi-lingual pun title. Its English title is Make You Kingdom!! and its Japanese title (迷宮キングダム), pronounced meikyū kingudamu, sounds the same and can be translated as “Maze Kingdom” (note that “Labyrinth Kingdom” or “Dungeon Kingdom” would be equally valid translations; I stuck with “Maze” to match the “M” sound of meikyū). The English title will make more sense after reading the game mechanics explanation below. Both Japanese and English titles are prominently featured on the cover. We’ll use the unofficial acronym of MYK when referring to this system hereafter. Below we discuss some of its features and highlight some of the parts that make it unique.

The system is divided between two books: the Kingdom Book details character creation and the general rules of the game; and the Maze Book (which, unfortunately, I do not own) is where the Game Master will find details about how to build the dungeon, as well as monster and item stats. At least, that’s what the short description in the Kingdom Book (page 8) says about the Maze Book anyway.

The setting of this system is simple but effective. From page 4 of the game’s introduction (with my rough translation below it):

百万迷宮の冒険

君の分身、ランドメイカーのいる世界は、百万迷宮という名前で呼ばれている。無限に続く迷宮という意味の名前だ。百万迷宮は不思議な場所だ。ずっとこの世界に住んでいるランドメイカーにとっても、何が起こるか判らない、お祭りの夜みたいな場所なんだ。

Endless (literally “Million Mazes”) Maze Adventure

Your characters’ world is named the Endless Maze; it’s the world of the Land Makers. The name means that the dungeon continues without end in every direction. It’s a mysterious place. Although the Land Makers have lived here forever, even they don’t know what can happen. It’s a place that feels like the night of a festival.

That brief description alone makes me excited to plan for a campaign set in an endless dungeon. What would society in such an environment look like? How would creatures cope without natural sunlight? It’s a tired joke that GMs can sometimes struggle to get players to go to a dungeon that they’ve spent hours preparing. To solve this problem, MYK simply makes the entire world a never-ending dungeon.

Character creation looks to be fairly straightforward. Players are encouraged to generate completely random characters, even down to the characters’ names. Random tables are provided throughout for convenience’s sake. There are six classes, including: King, Knight, Oracle, Vizier, Servant, and Ninja. One player must choose the King class. Characters are defined by four stats: Wit, Charisma, Quest, and Warfare. Quest stands out as strange, but it relates to how well a character can find things. For whatever reason, it’s also connected to a character’s hit points. Rather than rolling for these stats, they’re determined by a character’s class. For example, a King gets to assign a 4, 4, 1, and 0 freely. Many Japanese systems eschew polyhedral dice entirely and rely exclusively on six-sided dice. Arguably polyhedral dice didn’t catch on as much as they did outside of Japan. MYK is no exception to this convention.

At this point you might be wondering why one player must pick the King class. The answer is simple: unlike the other classes which must put their highest bonus in a predetermined stat, the King’s class bonuses are left up to the player’s discretion completely, meaning that the King character can pick up the slack in an area that the other characters are weak.

MYK also includes kingdom creation and management. Prior to making characters, the entire group randomly generates a kingdom. The kingdom is defined by four stats: Life, Culture, Governance, and Military (生活, 文化, 治安, and 軍事 respectively). If any of these stats reaches zero, the kingdom is kaput. Players must also pay attention to the kingdom’s population, which cannot be reduced to zero either. The population not only includes the player characters themselves, but also the various NPCs that will come to live in the kingdom. The population must be kept relatively happy; a disgruntled populace will have negative consequences for the kingdom. Each session includes a phase where the players must decide what to do with their growing base. The game rules seem to describe a city-management style mini-game. The players can construct new facilities for their kingdom, including (but not limited to) a theater, a temple, an inn, and a colosseum, with each providing benefits to the kingdom’s stats or population limit.

There are twenty jobs available to characters in addition to the classes above. These seem to offer stat bonuses and skills for the character and benefits for the kingdom as a whole. Some of these jobs are quite silly, such as the Executioner and the Drone (怠けもの, which is perhaps better translated as “Lazy Bones”). My favorite by far is the Happymancer, which is an exceedingly clever way to refer to a jester. Keep in mind these classes, jobs, and stats are written in both Japanese and English. There are definitely a few mistakes, such as the misspelling of executioner as “excusioner.” Nevertheless, it’s usually easy to figure out what the intention was.

Because MYK only uses six-sided dice, there are some quirks regarding its random tables. For one thing, there are quite a few d66 tables that require a throw of 2d6. These types of tables can generate 21 results, treating one die as the tens column and the other die as the ones column.

Combat is abstract in a way similar to the style popular in older Japanese RPG video games. Characters and their opponents are placed on a battle mat with six sections, three for each side (players and their enemies). These sections determine a creature’s approximate position in the battle (vanguard, rearguard, and encampment). Player characters and their enemies can move among these sections during the battle.

Skills, items, and the facilities that can be added to a kingdom are printed as cards in the book. If a GM were so inclined, they could photocopy these cards for use during play. If memory serves, printed color cards are also available for purchase from the publisher. The cards don’t seem to be strictly necessary to play the game, but the artwork featured on them is appreciated. Some other tabletop role-playing systems would benefit from more illustrations of their magic spells.

The artwork in this book deserves some special attention. They’ve gathered an eclectic group of artists to fill in the book’s 136 pages with a healthy variety of styles. It still feels largely cohesive, which is likely due to the game’s straightforward (though original) setting. The art is generally light and cartoonish in tone, implying that the game isn’t meant to be super serious or dark. The item cards section is the only one that seems to be a little lacking; compared to other cards in the book, the simple silhouette illustrations leave a little to be desired.

My Japanese ability is such that I wouldn’t be able to run a session of MYK any time soon. For example, the specific rules for making an attack in combat still elude my understanding; it’s unclear whether or not an attacking creature needs to roll to hit or if a successful attack is purely contingent on static stats. Moreover, I still need a copy of the Maze Book. These reasons are why this post should be considered an overview rather than a proper review. Regardless, I’ll still be able to use some of MYK’s ideas, of course. It would be great if an official English version of the system was released. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be an effort to do so yet. Considering that the game has been around as early as 2004 (my copy from 2014 proudly proclaims the system was celebrating its 10 year anniversary at the time), an English version is probably not going to happen any time soon. There’s an unofficial English translation floating around online, but I can’t in good conscience encourage people to seek it out. It might be a moral grey zone if you already own the Japanese version, but I leave that up to others to decide for themselves. I’ve avoided referencing it while writing this post to ensure that what is written here is based on the version of the rulebook that I own rather than a translation made without the permission of the Japanese authors.

The Kingdom Book cost around ¥1700 (approx. $20 USD) a few years ago. It was the very first tabletop RPG book that I ever bought. Hopefully it’ll still be easy to find the Maze Book when travel to Japan is possible again. Although I’m still a proponent of not buying too many RPG resources, it’s nice to have this one on my shelf. It’s especially fascinating to see what tabletop role-playing is like in different cultures/countries.

Bibliography

Kawashima Tōichirō 河嶋陶一朗. Shinikaru poppu danjyon shiatā: Meikyū kingudamu: Shin ōkoku bukku シニカルポップ・ダンジョンシアター：迷宮キングダム：新・王国ブック [Cynical Pop Dungeon Theater: Maze Kingdom: New Kingdom Book]. Tōkyō: Bōken Kikakukyoku 冒険企画局, 2014 (6th printing).

Play Report: Club Sandwich and Zolohan

The following is a play report from a few years ago. It was my very first time actually playing Basic Fantasy Role-Playing (BFRPG); up to this point I had only been a GM using 5e. Neither player had done much tabletop role-playing prior to this session. They made some mistakes that should’ve really backfired (namely, splitting up and exploring on their own), and I went a little too easy on them.

The planning for this session was pretty minimal. I had a city map drawn with a few locations they could check out, plus a small dungeon outside of the city. The NPCs inside the manor were part of an encounter list that I’d prepared for a completely different session.

If we could do this session all over again today I would probably do things a little differently. For one, the kobold named Club Sandwich should have died from the poisoned food. In addition, although BFRPG explicitly states that level 1 characters cannot hire underlings, I would’ve liked to encourage both players to do just that. Allowing players to control more than one creature can help them get used to the high lethality of these sorts of systems. It can also introduce to them the idea that hired creatures have their own motivations and are not likely to hang around if they’re always put in dangerous situations.

All things considered, it was a fun and silly time.

Cast
Club Sandwich the level 1 kobold thief
Zolohan the level 1 elf fighter/magic-user

⁂

Club and Zolohan met in the city and approached the walled manor from the west. While Club attempted to scale the wall, Zolohan tried his luck getting by the lone guard. Clumsily juggling some knives managed to convince the guard that Zolohan was a hired performer. Meanwhile, Club successfully scaled the wall and hopped down into the manor grounds without incident.

The two partners in crime reunited once again headed to the front door to find out if it was unlocked. Club walked right in the front door while Zolohan decided on the spur of the moment to climb the manor itself to check for an entrance on the roof.

Inside the manor lobby, Club found himself face to face with a manor guest named Snauheim. Snauheim demanded to know who Club was, and, in a snap decision, Club did the splits to impress him. Snauheim, normally stuffy and dismissive, was so impressed that he immediately assumed that Club must be part of the night’s performance. Satisfied, Snauheim turned his attention to a painting on the wall, giving Club a chance to snitch his wallet. Taking his leave, Club tried to do jazz hands but only ended up flipping Snauheim the bird. Fortunately, Snauheim was too engrossed in a painting that he didn’t notice the kobold’s obscene gesture.

On the roof, Zolohan’s elven eyes only had to glance around before spotting a hidden trapdoor leading to an attic. Zolohan jumped in without looking and landed on a soft, but very dusty mattress. The attic proved to be a jumbled mess of disused furniture and not much else. While exploring, Zolohan nearly stumbled right into a giant spider. Fortunately, the spider hadn’t noticed him yet and the elf was able to lure it away with his ventriloquism. The spider likely sounded like a family of squirrels running around as it went off to find the voice it heard. Zolohan found another trapdoor in the floor and jumped down to the second floor of the manor.

Meanwhile, Club took the staircase in front of him to the second floor and proceeded to take the western hallway. He heard what sounded like a family of squirrels running around in the attic and, shortly thereafter, was reunited with his elven comrade. The attic ladder nearly crushed the poor kobold, but “almost” is the key word here.

Club decided to pick the lock to a locked door and made quick work of it. The two of them entered the room without listening to the door and found themselves in a bedroom with a skinny, well-dressed man named Wafer lying in bed and eating a seven course meal. Thinking quickly, Club readied his crossbow and fired a dart at the man’s head. The man died instantly. Club, feeling remorseful about his brash decision, began to search the room for a reason to justify his wanton killing. He only found a copy of a workers’ rights pamphlet, making him feel even worse. After some moping he dismissed the dead man as a “class traitor” due to his presence in an opulent manor. He was also sure to relieve the corpse of its wallet. Finally having a moment of reprieve, Club searched through Snauheim’s wallet and found 80 gold pieces. Wafer’s wallet only held 10, bringing Club’s total to 260 gold coins.

Zolohan, upon seeing his companion murder a man, suddenly felt ravenously hungry and helped himself to some of Wafer’s T-Rex meat.

The two set to hiding the body. They quickly closed the bedroom door and began to search the room for places to hide it. They debated about throwing it out the window, and even attempted it once to less than successful results; the window proved to be far sturdier than they anticipated and the two fell into a pile.

Next, they tried to hide the corpse in the closet but it was full of rotting food. Club foolishly touched the food and was promptly poisoned, nearly dying in the process. They finally tucked the body under the bed and left the room. Outside, they were immediately stopped by Tolly, a well-dressed, and well-muscled woman. The two managed to convince the friendly lady that they were the hired performers for the night. Club told her about being poisoned and she asked him if he had tried to open Wafer’s closet. “Honestly, we’ve tried to implement a ‘no food in bedrooms’ policy, but he just won’t listen. It’s really quite disgusting.”

Tolly invited the two down into the kitchen where she was certain the head chef should be able to whip something up to make Club feel better. The chef offered Club a pulsing vial of antidote, which Zolohan slapped out of his little claws. Zolohan insisted there must be a more attractive alternative. The chef offered a cake form of the antidote, which also pulsated and had a small vein on it. Club choked it down and started to feel better.

Gains this session:
90 gold pieces for Club Sandwich (unclear if he intended to share)

Creatures defeated:
1 man named Wafer