FMA Draft part 1A - third time lucky.....?

Well, all the responses so far seem positive, so I'm going to take  a
chance and send this now..... <grin>

OK everyone, here we go: No, I haven't written all this in the last
couple
of hours - it is cobbled together (rather hastily!) from half-a-dozen
different bits of draft material written over the last three years or
so!
So, no apologies for it being a bit disjointed in places; if something
isn't covered, try using the relevant bits from Stargrunt II and let us
know what happens!
 If you are interested in this sort of game, please wade through it and
give us some feedback - if not, then feel free to delete the whole lot
now!!

Jon (GZG)

Legal Bit:
All material in this draft is copyright July 1999 by Jon Tuffley and
Ground
Zero Games; all rights reserved; FMA is a trademark of Ground Zero
Games.

1) This material is for list members' eyes only at this stage; it must
NOT be
put up on anyone's website, and while it may be used for test games with
your own immediate player groups it is NOT for distribution outside this
in
any manner or form without prior permission; if anyone wants to use it
for
any kind of public demo or participation game (eg: at shows, stores or
other gatherings) then this should be possible, but I'd appreciate you
checking with me by email first.
IF YOU ARE NOT HAPPY TO ABIDE BY THIS CONDITION, PLEASE DELETE THIS
EMAIL NOW!

2) Any ideas or supplementary material posted to the list as a result of
the discussions may get used in any final printed or published form of
the
rules (as per the standard terms of the GZG list), and while I'll
certainly
be giving credit to the list membership as a whole it will probably be
impossible to individually mention each person contributing ideas... it
will probably just have to be along the lines of a thank-you to the
whole
list, with a "you know who you are" line!

3) Everything in this post is still fairly rough draft material, and
should be
treated accordingly; the present version has seen a bit of in-house
testing
(very successfully to date), but has not yet been tested in the heat of
battle in the hands of the List Grunts... <grin>
Don't be surprised to find contradictions and missing bits - we'd like
to
know about these when you do find them.  Regarding feedback to the list
or
direct to us, PLEASE use a bit of discretion and common sense to avoid
swamping the list and upsetting the non-interested members - if it is a
minor error or inconsistancy that can simply be fixed, then it will be
best
to email this direct to us - only use the list itself for points that
genuinely need major discussion.

---------------------

FMA PLAYTEST DRAFT, July 1999

This is a test version of the basic FMA core rules (Near Future/SF
version); to play, you will need a selection of counters/markers from
Stargrunt II (preferred) or Dirtside II. Rules copyright GZG 1999. FMA
is a
trademark of GZG.

INTRODUCTION:
FMA is a generic skirmish rules system to simulate individual and
small-unit combat; this  version of the system is set up for a
"Near-Future
Sci-Fi" environment, but the core rules will work just as well for
almost
any SF, fantasy or historical setting from cavemen up to far future
enhanced humans! This adaptability is due to the way the FMA system
approaches small unit combat -	that morale, leadership and control are
much more important than the hardware that your troops are carrying.
That
isn't to say that FMA ignores the hardware - you'll find a wide
selection
of weapons, armour and equipment of varying effects to outfit your
troops
with, plus full rules on how to design your own if what we provide isn't
enough - but don't expect to win just because you have the biggest guns;
the most wonderful weapon in the known universe is of very little use if
the trooper carrying it is too scared to poke his head out of cover and
fire it....
So, why is FMA different from other skirmish rules on the market? Well,
it
is fast without ignoring important variables, and simple to play without
being simplistic.  While some other systems sacrifice important factors
in
the search for speed and playability (decent morale rules are usually
the
first to go!), FMA provides a "realistic" system that actually works as
a
game while keeping the feel of leading a small unit into battle.
Your figures are not all little telepathic, fearless superheroes - the
won't always do what you want them to, and if they think things are
turning
nasty they may well not hang around to get killed! You need to lead them
from the front, push them hard where necessary and use all your command
skills to get the job done....
One of the great strengths of FMA is the ease of set-up, especially in
the
basic game. At the simplest level, there is NO paperwork or written
records
to keep, no troop rosters to complete (though that is an option later
on)
and in fact no need to plan anything in advance.
Simply choose a half-dozen or so miniatures for each player, pick a few
Activation Markers (which indicate the quality and nerve of your troops)
at
random and assign one to each figure, agree between yourselves what each
figure's weapons and armour represent (just to avoid arguments later!),
then put your troops out on the table and start playing!

SCENARIOS:
Of course, it makes the game much more interesting if you have some kind
of
scenario and objective rather than just advancing across the table and
shooting the opposition (not that there is anything wrong with this -
for
an introduction to the rules or a quick "no-brainer" game before going
down
the pub, a "Kill everything on the board" scenario is just fine!).
Scenarios don't have to be complicated, or even written down in advance.
They can be as simple as "I'll take six troops and defend this command
post, you take a dozen and try to capture it" - voila, a scenario,
objective and victory conditions in one line!
At the other end of the scale, a scenario can be as complex and detailed
as
you want to make it, with additional rules for special occurences,
alternative objectives, pre-prepared defences, off-table support and
anything else you want.

SIZE OF GAME:
Because it focusses on individual figures rather than units of troops,
FMA
works best for low-level skirmishes with up to a dozen or so troops per
player. A game doesn't have to be big to be fun, and battles with just a
handful of figures can be as exciting (and often more tactically
challenging) as those with huge forces on the table.
The system will quite happily handle larger forces, though we'd
recommend
grouping the figures into small teams and using the optional "units"
rules
if you want to use a lot - turns may get quite long if each player has
to
activate twenty or more figures individually. If you want to go a level
up
and do actions with platoon or company sized forces, then we'd recommend
you try our STARGRUNT II rules which are specifically designed for this
level of game.

DICE:

One of the key elements of the FMA system is its use of five different
types of polyhedral dice to reflect different circumstances and chances
of
success.  The dice are D4, D6, D8, D10 and D12, and as a bare minimum
you
will need one of each to play the game. However, as there are many times
when you and/or your opponent will need to roll more than one of the
same
kind of dice at the same time, having only one set will mean you have to
remember your earlier score while you roll again - it is much better, in
practice, to have at least two or three sets of the five dice handy so
you
can roll all the necessary ones simultaneously.
Though most experienced gamers will already have a good collection of
dice,
we strongly recommend going out and buying a few especially for this
game,
in the correct colours. This really isn't a very large outlay - two or
three full sets of good quality solid-colour dice (leave those fancy
pearl
and sparkly ones to the roleplayers!) will not set you back much more
than
the cost of a couple of figures, and they will really pay dividends in
ease
of play.
So, what do we mean by the "correct colours"? Well, because a lot of
rolls
in the game are related to each figure/character's "QUALITY RATING",
which
is denoted by the COLOUR of the activation marker by the figure, if you
have the relevant die handy in the same colour as the marker then
picking
up the right die becomes much more intuitive. So, an ELITE character,
who
has a RED marker, has a D12 Quality Die - thus you use RED D12s.
Similarly
D10s are ORANGE (Veteran quality), D8s are BLUE (Regulars), D6s GREEN
(Greens) and finally D4s are YELLOW for the lowly Untrained characters.
Need to make a roll that requires the Quality die? Just grab a die of
the
same colour as the figure's marker! It may seem an obvious and pretty
basic
point, but believe us, in the heat of battle it really does make things
much easier.

SCALES AND DEFINITIONS:

GROUNDSCALE:
For most games, in whatever setting, we strongly recommend a groundscale
of
1" on the table represents 2 YARDS* - all distances in the rules are
given
in inches assuming this scale. If you are using 25mm scale figures, this
groundscale is near enough the same as the figure scale that you can
assume
everything on the tabletop is "in proportion" to the figures; thus a
building, vehicle or anything else actually takes up the same space as
its
model does. If this sounds a bit obvious, remember that many wargame
systems use a distorted groundscale/figure scale relationship in order
to
accommodate larger combats and ranges, so in such games a single
building
model can indicate a whole group of structures, vehicles are "really"
much
smaller than the models used to represent them and so on; in FMA,
everything is as it appears to be on the table - if you can hide your
figure behind something, he is hidden - if not, then he isn't!

* If you prefer to use metric units, you can take the groundscale as
25mm
(ie: approximately 1") on the table is equivalent to 2 METRES of real
distance - wherever a distance in inches is specified in the rules,
count
this as units of 25mm, eg: 4" = 100mm, 6"  = 150mm and so on.