>A
version of this, called 'The Sun Never Sets' by Dave Waxtel and Barry
>Gray, appeared in The Courier magazine (Vol III, No. 4, Jan - Feb 1982,
eek,
>there are probably a number of members of this list who are younger than
>this magazine! Yes, my child, in them thar days magazines were printed! On
>paper! :) )
>>
>> The campaign system for The Sword and the Flame has an ingenious
>> method of dealing with this. Each player is both a British minister
>> *and* a native ruler. If I'm the Prince of Siam and the Tommies are
>> really pounding on me, then in my persona as MP, I'm going to vote to
>> send troops to Abyssinia, not Siam.
>In FT, perhaps all the players would be members of the UN, or the governing
>council of one of the powers, while also protecting their patch when
playing
>their own fleet or power.
I played in one of those campaigns and it was fun. I was an MP, British second
in command in India
and first in command of the Boers.
As
British second in command I was sent with native Indian troops to Afghanistan when India
was restless and Afghanistan
was in open conflict. When Afghanistan
quieted down I went back to India
and was sent to South Africa
(India
was still restless) and was attached to the column that avenged the distruction
of a British column fighting the Zulus. The general theory was if Indian forces
mutiny it's better to have them anywhere but in India.
As Boer
commander I got the Boers into a restless state and was in the zone next
to the zone where the first British column was ambushed by the Zulus. My
three units of mounted Boers showed up on the edge of the battlefield but could
not enter or shoot into "British" territory but could accept
survivors that made it into our territory. After the first shock wore off the
Zulu commander just ignored us and didn't get within "a threat"
range.
By having
two commanders for each command one person could miss a turn and the game could
go on. The only problem was that there wasn't enough cut-throat gamers so each
native uprising usually got smashed due to sufficient forces being sent.
Anyone
tried matrix Gamming?
I tried
out a gaming system using matrix gamming which was interesting. Each
player would propose an action and reason for the action based on a set of
possible actions and reasons and each player would vote on the action and then
a random chance role is made.
For
example:
Fleet 19
of UN will return to base due to need for overhaul. The canned action in
this case was "return to base" and the canned reason was
"needed overhaul". The players would argue the order: the fleet just
arrived the previous turn from base and had been at base for three turns. The
vote was let's say 6 to 2 against (gamemaster gets 2 votes) so
subtracted 40% (2 for - 6 against times 10%) chance and base was 40% so
there 10% chance (always at least 10% chance and never more then a 90% chance
orderers will be followed) fleet will follow the order
and return to base. Politics can enter in and deals can be struck so that
I vote for this and you'll vote for that.
Tie this
in with a "normal" game and it could go like this. UN Fleet 19 joins
with NAC fleet Force "C" to defend against the invasion of the BEMs
(please fill in with any Bug Eyed Monsters you choose). The BEM player in
matrix part of game proposes order (see above) and when the dice is thrown a 1
is thrown and UN Fleet 19 heads back to base and will have to stay for at least
1 turn at base before doing anything.
The next
turn the NAC commander could issue order: Fleet 19 will "ignore
orders" due to "critical situation" of invasion by BEM.
The UN
commander could issue order: BEM 6th armada will "return to base" due
to "unrest of forces" due to missing religious festival.
The BEM
commander could issue orders: Fleet 19 of UN will "return to base"
due to "shortage of supplies" with the assumption that the
first order may be cancelled.
Scott