TABLETOP TACTICS a Universal Wargaming Engine Compatible with Saga, RUGS, and Other Fine Roleplaying Systems

TABLETOP TACTICS a Universal Wargaming Engine compatible with Saga, RUGS, and other fine Roleplaying Systems By Rowan Gangulfr Published in 2009 by Rowan Gangulfr/Yggdrasil Distro Questions, Comments, Contributions [email protected] Saga, RUGS, & other free roleplaying material are available on the internet rugsroleplaying.org yggdrasildistro.wordpress.com For those with respect for intellectual property laws: Contents are protected under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share-Alike 3.0 United States license. You are free to copy and make derivative works for non-commercial purposes. For everyone else: This work is Anti-Copyright. Do what you will, provided it's not for profit, and please credit me when using this material. Contents Introduction 3 Shameless Self-promotion 3 What Is Tabletop Tactics? 3 The Politics of Wargaming 3 A Note on Bad Stereotypes in Gaming 4 What You Need to Play 4 Choosing a Campaign Setting or Gaming World 4 Choosing a Scenario 5 Building an Army, Miniatures, Terrain 5 Basic Rules 7 When Rules Are in Dispute 7 The Roll Chart, Rolling Dice, Bonuses & Penalties to Rolls 7 Turns & Rounds, Conditions of Victory 8 Units, Unit Statistics 9 Independent Characters, Character Statistics 10 Vehicles, Vehicle Statistics 10 Weapon & Armor Statistics 11 Movement, Unit Coherency 11 Size, Size Bonuses & Penalties 12 Advanced Rules, Combat Rules 14 Melee Combat 14 Ranged Combat 16 Flame Based Weapons 17 Explosive Weapons, Determining Scatter 17 Big Guns, Artillery 18 Firing Into a Melee, Rolling Percentage Dice 18 Attacking & Destroying Vehicles, Attacking With Vehicles 19 Morale, Morale Checks, Leadership 22 Cover 23 Terrain Movement Penalties, Dangerous Terrain 24 Climactic Penalties 25 Stealth & Subterfuge 25 Special Characteristics & Abilities 27 Point Values 29 1 Weapons & Armor 30 Sample Weapon List 30 Sample Armor List 33 Generic Scenarios 34 Mutual Battle 34 Pitched Battle 35 Forward Position, Ground Seizure 36 Assassination!, Kill the Head... 37 Waiting For Reinforcements, Survival 38 Demolition! 39 Quick Reference Sheet 40 Unit Templates 41 2 Introduction This chapter introduces the game, discusses its nature and the politics in wargaming, plugs my various other free roleplaying projects, and lists all the materials required to play. Shameless Self-promotion Tabletop Tactics is only one of a series of free roleplaying and wargaming products that I write and publish. Other include Saga, a rules-light narrative system, and RUGS, the Revolutionary Universal Gaming System. These two universal roleplaying engines and a number of campaign settings compatible with both can be found on the internet at rugsroleplaying.org and yggdrasildistro.wordpress.com. Enjoy! What is Tabletop Tactics? Tabletop Tactics is a universal miniature wargaming system. What this means is that with the rules in this manual, you can hold battles between armies of any kind as represented by miniatures on a tabletop or other surface. Because this system is universal, you can run battles in any campaign setting or genre, or you can mix and match armies from different campaign settings and genres. These rules can also be used to run singular battles, or they can facilitate long-lasting campaigns of multiple battles. The rules in the following pages usually assume that two players are battling. However, this system is designed for two, three, four, or even more players to battle at once. The Politics of Wargaming Before getting into the game mechanics themselves, there are a few important things to discuss. The first of these is politics. This probably makes a lot of folks sigh with boredom or disgust, but because of the nature of wargames, it's critical to analyze and understand them with a political eye. Wargames promote hierarchy, large-scale destruction and murder, and violence as the only means of solving problems. Often, they also promote hierarchical (though fictional) socio-political structures, like kingdoms, empires, and nation-states. Even worse, wargaming groups themselves (accidentally or intentionally) often encourage hierarchy by falling into “macho” or “masculine” rolls and excluding women and female-bodied people. I am an anarchist, and I therefore consider all of these things incredibly fucked up. I am also a gamer, however, and I still sometimes play roleplaying games and wargames from the perspective of the oppressor (as in the armies of kingdoms and empires, etc.) I don't want to suggest wargames shouldn't be played from these perspectives and with these attitudes. If I did, I wouldn't write and publish a wargame. But I do want people to be aware of the politics underlying this type of game. Hopefully, with this awareness, people will avoid such attitudes in reality and express them only in the falsehoods of gaming. 3 A Note on Bad Stereotypes in Gaming One other thing that needs a brief mention is something I always bring up in my various roleplaying and gaming materials. That is, please don't feel boxed in by bad fantasy and sci-fi stereotypes, and please don't perpetuate them when playing Tabletop Tactics. If you want an army of axe-wielding Dwarves with beards, or an army of Elvish archers with long hair and unparalleled finesse, that's fine. However, it's very likely that instead of making up an entire army, Dwarven axemen would make up only one or two units, just as a regiment of Elvish archers would represent the ranged portion of their army. Surely, Dwarven armies would also have skilled archers or spear throwers or halberdiers or whatever, and Elven armies must certainly have warriors skilled in the melee. Otherwise, without such diversity, these armies would quickly be destroyed. The use of Dwarves and Elves is but one example. There are dozens of other bad cliches that plague the gaming world (Orcs and Goblins being idiotic, blood-crazed “savages” for example). Your gaming experience will definitely be richer if you avoid these stupid platitudes. What You Need to Play There are a few things besides this rulebook that you'll need to run a battle or a campaign. The first is a handful of d10s (10-sided dice), and probably a d6 (6-sided die). You can get by with only 1d10, but battles will run more quickly and smoothly with more. Other than a d10, players will need writing utensils and paper, and a measuring tape or ruler for determining distances on the table. Player may also want a Scatter Die, but it isn't totally necessary. In addition to these materials, players will also need so sort of miniatures to visually represent their units and unique characters on the table. More information on collecting miniatures can be found in the section on Building an Army below. Choosing a Campaign Setting or Gaming World Since this gaming engine is universal, players must agree on a campaign setting or gaming world that their battles will take place in. This can be anything imaginable: Hyboria (the world of Conan), Dune, Star Wars, Star Trek, Forgotten Realms, Middle Earth, Generic High Fantasy, Post-Apocalyptic Earth, the 41st Millennium of Warhammer 40k, the Renaissance of Warhammer Fantasy, etc. Choosing a campaign setting or gaming world before play is essential, because players cannot choose armies without first knowing what kind of armies exist. In a Dune campaign (based on the universe established by Frank Herbert in the novel of the same name), for example, players could control the armies of the Fremen, House Atreides, House Harkonen, any other House of the Landsraad, the Bene Geserit, the Bene Tleilax, or the forces of the Padishah Emperor of House Corrino. Each of these armies will have very different units and unique characters, and players must create these. The Fremen, for one, will have Knifefighters, Sandworms/Sandworm Riders, and Reverend Mothers. House 4 Harkonen armies will be made up of Infantry, Suicide Troops, Twisted Mentats, and the like. The armies of the Emperor will have Imperial Infantry, a large variety of vehicles to choose from, and Sardaukar Terror Troops. This is but one example of hundreds and hundreds of potential settings and armies. Look forward to future Tabletop Tactics supplements containing armies, campaign setting material, and more. Choosing a Scenario Once you've decided what kind of world you'll be playing in, you also must decide what kind of battle is going to take place. Typically, battles in Tabletop Tactics are fought with an even point value of troops on each side (or on all sides in the case of more than two players/armies), and armies are deployed evenly as if they control one side of the table. In other scenarios, armies may be slightly or greatly imbalanced in terms of point values. These kind of scenarios can be extremely fun, and often represent much more realistic situations than two armies of balanced might going head to head. These include situations like a small force being entrenched in a bunker or barricade and having to fend off a much larger invading force, or an elite squadron penetrating deep into enemy lines and assassinating an important character. Unit point values are described in greater detail in the section on Unit Statistics in the next chapter. A list of generic scenarios that can be used with any campaign setting and armies can be found toward the end of this rulebook. Building an Army, Miniatures, Terrain As mentioned above, players will need some kind of miniatures to visually and physically represent their troops. Players can lay their hands on minis in a number of ways. There are myriad miniature companies with fine products, and just as many ways to steal or acquire these products for free. There are also numerous miniature fonts on the internet, some free and some for sale. These fonts allow players to type and print thousands of troops.

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