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Author Topic: An Echo Resounding  (Read 1866 times)

Greentongue

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An Echo Resounding
« on: December 16, 2014, 08:15:25 AM »
Anyone played in or playing a game that is just domain level? Specifically using the An Echo Resounding rules.

Instead of a wilderness, wouldn't the different sections/wards of a large city work just as well?

If so, how about mixing city and wilderness? Is scale an issue?
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Future Villain Band

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An Echo Resounding
« Reply #1 on: December 16, 2014, 12:08:23 PM »
Quote from: Greentongue;804747
Anyone played in or playing a game that is just domain level? Specifically using the An Echo Resounding rules.

Instead of a wilderness, wouldn't the different sections/wards of a large city work just as well?

If so, how about mixing city and wilderness? Is scale an issue?
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I'm using it for Province level play in L5R 4e right now, and it's a solid ruleset, but I haven't used mass-combat.

It does have brief guidelines on scaling the rules up or down based on what type of game you're running, and I suspect from what I know of them that if you're using it to describe wards of a city it would still work well, since it used "locations" as the undergirding of its estate management system -- so you can say, "This neighborhood has X, Y, that one has Z, these are reasons to go after that neighborhood, etc."

Greentongue

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An Echo Resounding
« Reply #2 on: December 28, 2014, 01:32:20 PM »
I have started an AER game on rpol.net and have found some things that are not included in the rule version I have.

For example, the Guardmen ability is needed to address the Disorder obstacle however there is no listed Unit that has this ability.

I had to add the Unit:
Guards   1   9   120’   1d6 Spear   F1   6   1M   1W   0S   Guardsmen

Any other things that people have found missing or confusing that I should be aware of?
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Greentongue

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An Echo Resounding
« Reply #3 on: December 29, 2014, 08:12:09 AM »
Another thing is the 1 roll for Assets per Action. Since M/W/S  each need their own successful roll, I changed it to a SET of rolls per Action. That way you get one for each instead of ONE period.
While that may make things unrealistically quick, online play is slow enough without added delays.

Will this be a problem later when the Domains get big bonuses for their sizes?
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Greentongue

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An Echo Resounding
« Reply #4 on: December 29, 2014, 07:46:23 PM »
What about the number of Actions per turn. The rules state 2 for a PC.
What if you are playing AER as its own game? Should the number of allowed Actions increase as the size of the Domain increases?
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Greentongue

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An Echo Resounding
« Reply #5 on: January 04, 2015, 03:41:19 PM »
The person that created the AER rules posted a response to a thread of mine with interesting info:


Quote
It's always good to see people using my stuff. You spotted the Guardsman absence, and I'll also note that I goofed a few places in totaling up the example polities in the Westmark section, so don't take those numbers too literally if they're off a dot or two.

I would have to warn you, though, that AER doesn't really work as a stand-alone game. The balance involved for the PCs fundamentally assumes that adventures are going to happen that affect the polities. Without it, things like building assets don't work right- it takes too long for the PCs to accomplish anything, because the game assumes that their adventure sessions are automatically achieving goals for the polity. It's extremely hard to build a game that functions both as a stand-alone domain game and an integrated part of a campaign; either PC adventures don't count for much, allowing an appropriate degree of balance in the domain game but leaving the adventure sessions rather superfluous, or else they have real significance, making the important part of the session the adventuring and leaving it very difficult to balance the domain game aspects. For AER, the important part is unquestionably the adventuring.

When it comes to Heroes and Champions, again, they're meant to integrate with the adventuring aspects of things. In a vacuum, they're going to be extremely powerful in a domain-level sense, and they're intended to be another of the tacit advantages that PC domains have over NPC ones. The NPCs might have a few, but they don't have an entire adventuring party's worth constantly going on and doing Useful Things. If you try to balance them among the domains it might be more even, but again, you're running into the basic issue that the game wasn't meant to be run apart from a normal adventuring campaign.

Still, you can always give it a spin and see what happens. In place of adventures, you might give the PC side one automatically-successful action per turn to represent a successful adventure. I didn't playtest it that way, but surprises can always pop out when a system is put into a new form of stress.

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Greentongue

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An Echo Resounding
« Reply #6 on: February 23, 2015, 08:20:57 AM »
Considering the warning from the author I've made some changes.
It seems to be working well enough so far.

AER: A New Lord Rises

The hardest part is the typical problem of Play by Post games, retaining players.
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Greentongue

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An Echo Resounding
« Reply #7 on: March 02, 2015, 07:37:39 AM »
While I have not made my rules summary available to the public, I have created a Quick Start that is. If there is interest.

Comments on, if it is enough to actually get started, are welcome.
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