7Th Empire Fast Play Rules Version 10.Indd
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Page 1 Fast Play Rules Last Revised 9th December 2016 7th Empire is an Alternative History Roman Steam age Role Playing Game (RPG). As players, you pretend to be characters that are associated with Rome’s technological 42nd (XLII) legion. As a group, you go on various quests or missions at pivotal times in the Roman Empire. What if Steam technology came into widespread use in Roman times? How would that have altered the Roman Empire and what followed it? What if we could have avoided the Dark Ages? Perhaps we could now be using far more advanced technology, perhaps exploring other star systems and maybe time itself? Combat/Task Resolution Relative number of successes and failures on one or more six sided dice resolves tasks and combat. This is known as the Dice Pool (DP). Each dice can only be used once per round. The DP’s result is the number of successes minus the number of failures. Successes and Failures are determined from the table below:- Success / Failure Table Task Resolution Difficulty Table Abilities Dice Value Result Difficulty Level (DR) Number of Ability Abbreviation 6 3 Successes Successes required Strength (STR) 5 2 Successes Astonishing 15 + Nimbleness (NIM) 4 1 Success Formidable 12 Stamina (STA) 1 1 Failure Difficult 9 Acuity (ACU) 2, 3 Nothing Standard 6 Faith (FAI) Easy 3 Presence (PRE) Melee Combat Round Phase Description Initiative Each character rolls 2D6 + Initiative ((NIM) + (ACU)). If tied, roll 2D6 again. Action In Initiative order, each character can choose whether to act immediately, or delay until a later characters action or act at the end of the round (Inter- rupt). Each player is allowd 2 different choices of Combat, Movement, Spell Casting or Skill Actions per round. Allowed Combat actions are any one of Attack, Defend or Charge. Attack The Total Max Attack DP is (Weapon Type <WT> + Weapon Skill <WS> + (<STR> (Melee) or <NIM> (Ranged) ). Each dice can only be used once per round. Normally, characters can only attack once per round. If the opponent Defends, they subtract their Defence DP successes from the Attack DP successes. Damage is (Attack Successes - Defense Successes - Armour Value), and any positive Damage result is subtracted from the Opponents Current Hit Points (HP). If an Opponents number of Defense successes is less than 0 (negative), it adds to the Attackers number of Successes. Defend The Total Max Defense DP is (Weapon Type <WT> + Weapon Skill <WS> + (<STR> or <NIM>). Characters may only Defend one Attack. Characters can’t Attack as well as Defend. Character can elect to Defend an attack with no Dice in their DP for zero Successes, avoiding the chance of Defend DP Failures improving the Attack roll. Charge If out of melee range of any opponent at the start of your turn, the Character can elect to Charge instead of Attack, adding up to half your Strength Ability (STR) die rounded up to your Attack DP. Charging Characters have no Defense Action. You must move in a straight line to a position adjacent to your opponent. If blocked by any melee participant, you lose your Charge, making no Attack this round. Blocking active participants must Attack you immediately if they are able to do so at this stage in the Melee Combat round, using their Attack Action. Move The Character can Move or Flee on his action, if Fleeing, the Character succeeds in running away if their movement rate is greater than the attackers or if the attacker has been previously attacked in the current round, successfully or not, by another Opponent. Cast Spell The Character can now cast a spell. If the character has taken damage in the current round, the spell can only be cast if the caster makes a successful concentration check ((<FAI> + SL) DP successes, target number being the HP damage this round). Surrender Can be declared at any time. Character drops weapon, Attacker must then decide what to do with him. Skill Any Character Skill check Actions now take effect. Timeline: Pre 106CE: Herot’s aerophile (steam ball) had been looked at carefully by several Roman philosophers, including Pliny, but no significant interest had been shown. 106CE: Trajan overthrew the Dacian empire. It was celebrated as a great triumph, but the truth was that Trajan almost failed, and a grateful Senate covered up the narrow extent of his victory. Trajan demanded that systematic research should be conducted by a special working unit to investigate Herot’s discovery. This came to be known as the Machinam excogitare XLII cohortem (42nd machine investigation cohort), with it’s headquarters in Milan. 106-283CE: The 42nd made significant strides forwards, both in terms of steam mining engines, and also specialised in precision manufacture (lathe), programmable looms, differential computing engines and sewing machines, Significant advances were also made in metallurgy and chemistry, allowing the creation of military machines and revolu- tionising transport by the manufacture of steam engines. From about 240CE to date, thousands of miles of rail has linked up the majority of the Roman Empire, allowing faster (about 25 mph (40 kph)) movement of goods and raw materials. The rail network is maintained by a group known as the XLII auxiliaries. The Roman legions (milites) have largely ignored the network, as they doubt the reliability and they think that technology is not for soldiers. This has not stopped some Senators working with merchants and the 42nd to pursue their interests. 283CE: Carinus was appointed emperor. Of no mind to continue troublesome and expensive technological research, Carinus stopped all funding for the 42nd, pocketed as much wealth as he could, interned much of the 42nd and conducted a successful campaign in Brittania. 284CE: The Senator Diocletian decided to heavily invest in the 42nd. News of a plague in Milan kept the 42nd’s activities away from prying eyes and allowed Diocletian to deploy new personal and semi armoured vehicles such as the Manius Scythe steam flail chariot and the Vibius Spear projector. 285CE: Carinus decided that he wanted the great days of Empire and to completely stamp out the 42nd’s technologies and achievements. To hold Carinus up until Diocletian was ready, Julianus, a long time advocate of the 42nd, managed to slow him down but was ultimately defeated by Carinus near Verona. This set up a battle between Diocletians forces, including the 42nd, with Greek, Roman and Nubian mercenaries from the Eastern provinces with Carinus. Diocletian turned a close run battle in his favour with the strategic use of Manius Scythe chariots, punching through Carinus’s legions shield wall. The remnents of Carinus’s legions fled to Gaul, with most of them making the further journey to Brittania. On becoming Emperor, Diocletian greatly increased funding for the 42nd, set up a working sub committee to prioritise both milites and civiles research and began a large scale training and education program for the working and middle classes. This did not please much of the Senate, giving Diocletian a great many problems that only his friends and allies could help him solve. Page 2 Basic Character Creation To play 7th Empire, each player plays one or more persona or characters to interact with the game world. This section details the mechanics of creating alternate persona and filling in the details onto a players record sheet, more often known as a character sheet. Each box on the character sheet details an item or an attribute or the persona’s identity. Each section on the sheet is numbered for clarity, it is strongly suggested that you enter each section in the order presented here. 2 3 4 1 7 5 6 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 18 17 19 20 21 22 23 Page 3 Basic Character Creation Step Number Step Item Step Description 1 Character Name The Characters Name – Roman male names were usually the tria no- mina, praenomen, nomen and cognomen. Some common names... Praenomen Nomen Cognomen Aulus Aemilius Faustus Decimus Aurelius Felix Gaius Cornelius Fortunatus Gnaeus Domitius Maximus Lucius Fabius Proculus Marcus Flavius Rufus Publius Horatius Sabinus Quintus Iulius Saturninus Tiberius Livius Severus Titus Valerius Victor Roman Females did not normally use the tria nomina. Normally they would be the female form, followed either by maior (elder) or minor (younger) or the ordinal number, (Primus, Secundus, Tertius, Quar- tus, Quintus, Sextus, Septimus, Octavius, Nonus, Decius), e.g. Aemilia Maior. For Hellenic (Greek) character names, a single personal name was normally used. Example Hellenic male names... Alexandros, Aphrodisios, Apollodoros, Demetrios, Dionysios, Kallias, Nikias, Philon, Theophilos, Zosimos. Example Hellenic female names... Aphrodisia, Athenais, Demetria, Eirene, Euphrosyne, Kallisto, Myr- rhina, Nikostrate, Phila, Sostrate. 2 Character Gender Male or Female with extremely rare exceptions 3 Height Average height was about 5’ 6” 4 Weight Average weight was about 145lbs 5 Profile Characters skill career choice profile. Specialist gives higher class skill levels than Generalist, but fewer skills. Specialists pick 1 Primary skill at level 3, 2 Secondary skills at level 2 and 2 Tertiary skills at level 1. Generalists pick 2 Secondary skills at level 2 and 5 Tertiary skills at level 1. 6 Rank Rank or Profession level – For civiles Professions, usually years of expe- rience except where indicated. 7 Player Name Your name or nickname, as known to the other players. 8 Character Affiliation The Characters milites unit or civiles profession, if known. 9 Primary Class The Characters Primary Class. 10 Secondary Class The Characters Secondary Class, if any. (Not for starting characters). 11 Campaign The current adventure the character is involved in. 12 Primary Attributes Player allocates points to his abilities from the following: - 5/5/4/3/2/1 with each number being allocated to a single ability.