Okay, so the show isn’t quite the same as it used to be.  What I can’t wait for is when they bring out the game for the Nintendo Wii.  Oh come on, wouldn’t that be so much fun.  I’m sure Hasbro would want to jump in on a licensing deal with whoever it is that owns American Gladiator for a board/tabletop miniature game (proudly produced by China’s miniature painting society).

In all truth, I’ve watched maybe two of the new episodes.  It captures the essence of the original pretty well and builds a bit off of spiffed up camera shots and more involved sets.  Which brings on the discussion of Gladiators.  Which any discussion about Gladiators is sure to bring people to the table for gaming fun (at least that’s what my derranged mind tells me).

Gladiator Miniature games need to capture the essence of fast paced combat.  When developing a system it needs to flow extremely well with enough details to get the sand grit between your teeth.  Details such as martial arts moves, swordplay, and weapon advantages/disadvantages need to be an intimate part of the system.

As a Gladiator progresses their skills and ability scores can be increased to show for experience.  Of course, one thing missed out on by a lot of systems where a veteran comes into play is, age and permanent damage.  As any athlete or soldier can tell you, you may learn better ways but your body has limits.  One way to handle this is to set fill in circles (like a Scantron) for “Permanent Fatigue” (or some other better name I can’t think of right now).  After each battle if the characters health is below half their starting Health Points then the number of units below half would be filled in the “Permanent Fatigue” circles.  Once you reach certain levels it could lower your characters Health, Abilities, or limit their combat techniques.  There are many ways this can be handled to give the character more depth without paralyzing the character into retirement.

A Disadvantage chart could be made where after so many “Permanent Fatigue” circles are filled in (different points progressively quicker to another Disadvantage) the player rolls to determine what Disadvantage the character gains.  Many games have examples like this, for instance Critical Hit chart during gameplay.  This chart just happens to be one of the Post Battle charts the players would need to check to see if they apply to their character.

Some of the Disadvantages could:

• Lower Maximum Health Points
• Lower Agility/Dexterity Score (tendon/ligament damage)
• Eliminate Certain Combination moves
• Lose an Eye (Lowers Initiative Rolls, Lowers Ballistics Skill)
• Lose an Ear (Lowers Initiative Rolls)

As you can tell some of these Permanent Fatigue Disadvantages could be also on a “Critical Hit” chart as well.  In fact combining these two charts might not be a bad idea just to keep things similar and easier to track.  Of course, now I come to that conclusion.. If you can’t tell I’m writing in a relatively free-flowing form.. So you have to expect ideas to evolve while I’m writing them.

In conclusion for today, Gladiators need to be able to advance and degress in ways in an ideal Miniature Gladiator game.  Perhaps, the best part of this is that players who are extremely competitive will always have to choose a time for their character’s to retire and start again with a new one.  Otherwise, they are likely to run their character into a physically challenged gladiator who happens to get killed because he/she has become too frail to defend him/herself.  Besides, everybody needs a Hall of Fame to display their Great Gladiator Character Miniatures at home.  Retiring a miniature to a display case keeps you painting more and changing up the way you play!

Andy Watkins wrote up a ruleset for Gladiator gaming called “Spartacus Gladiator Rules” a while back.  The rules are meant to be super simple to pickup and play, so they of course are quite limited.  I’ve mulled over in my mind and on some documents for awhile on what is necessary for a Gladiator Tabletop Miniature Game (TMG).  Andy’s attempt isn’t quite what I’m going for, however I do like the idea of his “Effects of a Serious Wound” chart.  Even though I’m not a fan of all those cheap WizKids games, the simple rotating character stats dial is a great concept.  A successful Gladiator TMG would definitely need to take into account the degredation of character stats/abilities as they receive wounds. 

One thing for sure Armor needs to provide absorbtion of a landing blow, and not a decreased chance to get hit.  Back awhile ago I received “The Complete Book of Wargames” from a friend which is quite old, but definitely still viable.  Even back in 1980 they reviewers were annoyed at Advanced Dungeons & Dragons failure to fix their “Armor Class” concept.  The idea is armor simply absorbs/deflects blows that hit the character.  Armor also, typically slows down a characters movements with range of motion and weight limiters.  Seperating the To-Hit roll from the To-Wound roll is absolutely necessary for a quality system.  Sure you can abstract it further to come up with a single roll, however where is the story.  I’d be more impressed if someone took no damage even though I hit them, rather then I maybe hit them, or missed, or was parried.  Some of the best computer RPGs take into consideration the effects of wear on weapons and armor.  So let’s say you roll great on the To-Hit roll, then fail on the To-Wound roll.  An effect table could be setup to allow damage to the Armor or defender’s weapon. 

One of the other important factors that Andy brings up is the concept of disarming an opponent.  There is nothing more fun then disarming someone and giving them the chance to run for their weapon.  In the Gladiator TMG my goal is to provide weapons with certain advantages and disadvantages verses each other.  Andy’s system misses out on this since he keeps weapons down to two types (sword, spear).  Roman Gladiator combat was sprinkled with innumerable types of weapons both effective and pathetic.  The pitting of different types of gladiators verses each other is a theme that a lot of records show.  So if you do not have the Retiarii verses Secutores then you are seriously missing out on a good chunk of the flavor of gladiator combat.

Some basic concepts would be that a trident would be effective in disarming opponents that have almost any other type of weapon when used in a two-handed fashion.  The trident’s range would be less then a spear, and would not be able to be thrown as far as a spear.  This gives you an idea of what I’m going for.  The weapons would have to fall into weapon classes to keep the system running smooth.  Some RPG systems go into slash/pierce/crush which may be useful to include.  The Gladiator TMG would mainly be for a game of 2-8 gladiators involved in each combat.  So we can go into much more detail without loosing the flow.  Of course, a simplified system could be setup for fast playing with advanced rules for added features.

One of the key aspects of Roman gladiatorial combat that historical accounts have shown is the love of pitting various types of gladiators with specific weaponry against each other.  Wikipedia has a reasonable list of the different types of gladiators which you can read about.  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Roman_gladiator_types)

In a gladiator game of the Roman genre, you would want to capture the qualities of the different types of gladiators.  The way I envision the system would be establishing two general fighting skills (base skills).  The melee skill and range skill would be the base skill with specialty combat skills that would modify the base skill value.  So when you acquire a gladiator the base skills over time with experience and training the gladiator could acquire additional specialty combat skills that would enahance their base skill values when using particular weapons, etc. 

The biggest part of making a successful gladiatorial combat system is not necessarily the combat system itself.  If you simply have units picked up out of random and fought against each other the players will enjoy it for a while, but soon it will become idle pointlessness.  I’ve contemplated setting up a Gladiatorial Campaign System that would have basic paper rules, and also an online registration system.  As an example, the online version would have gladiators come up for auction with certain base skills that users could purchase with credits.  Then with those units they could register arena engagements and results with other players.  The results would have to be verified by both sides to allow scoring. 

 The purpose of the scoring is to establish combat values and a measurement system for experience and skills.  The system would setup different cities/regions for players to engage each other and find players to compete their gladiators with.  Their stats would be tracked online for verification of both players.  As a player, they would be taking the position of a Lanista (the gladiatorial manager).  You would then have the ability to have multiple gladiators under your management, for various levels of combat.

One of the key features that would pull the system all together is a Fame and Infamy stat value for each gladiator and the Lanista as a whole.  As the Fame or Infamy values go up the prices/points for the gladiatorial combat could increase.  The key reason for having seperate Infamy and Fame values is to establish the type of Lanista or Gladiator you are competing with.  Fame values increase with winning combats, however Infamy ratings would only increase if a gladiator kills another gladiator instead of simply making them yield.  This way if a Lanista is more likely to take the combat to death, you will be aware of this before submitting to the competition.

As more Lanistas join up, the Gladiatorial Campaign System would add more cities/regions for players to establish their tabletop gaming groups.  With more cities, comes the potential for more slaves to be sold off to Lanistas for their gladiator troupe.  Another key idea, would be to setup some occasional gladiators that come back from retirement and become available for hire (not slaves).

Which if a gladiator can come back from retirement, why not set rules up for a gladiator to buy his/her own freedom and leave troupes?  According to Wikipedia, a successful gladiator could earn their freedom in as little as three years.  This would setup a way so that even the best Lanista would have to start fresh on occasion with new gladiators to build up.  The Hall of Gladitorial Fame could be established for those gladiators who are able to earn their freedom with the Lanista’s name marking the player out with distinction for years to come.

Gladiatorial Tournaments could also be established for large events such as GenCon, Historicon, Dragon*Con, etc.  In fact Rome itself could be a region that is only opened up during the conventions for players at the key conventions to compete in.  The possibilities are almost limiteless.  Which is why the online system would have to be well planned to be flexible and almost limitless.

Till next time,

Lanista

One of the most common components of Tabletop Miniature Games (TMG) is a Combat Results Table (CRT).  The book I am currently reading “The Complete Book of Wargames” mentions almost constantly the CRT for each of the wargames that is reviewed.  In some ways CRT systems are pretty effective in simplifying the process of determining a result based off of a two-dimentional situation.  Warhamer Fantasy Battles (WFB) by Games Workshop makes use of CRTs for mutliple components of their combat system.  There may be one element missing when CRTs are used though.

On my other website (miniwarzone.com) I went on a tangent describing some concepts my brother and a friend worked on when developing game systems years ago.  An important element that is lost with a CRT is there are that it makes the system seem rather static.  As an example, in WFB the attacker’s Weapon Skill is compared to the defender’s Weapon Skill to determine a number that the attacker must roll greater then, or equal to on the “To Hit” CRT.  It works for the system, however it just seems very static.  The other component that we found pretty much missing was any system where there are successive die rolls (To Hit, To Wound, Armor Save) loses the effectiveness of the first die roll typically.  If a person rolls some amazing rolls, then rolls a pathetic roll on the next round of rolls their typically is nothing connecting the two sets of rolls beyond the quantity of dice rolled on the second round is directly connected to the results of the first round of rolls. 

Some role-playing systems attempted to resolve this by making Automatic Failures and Automatic Sucesses (lowest roll = AF, highest roll = AS).  I like these concepts as you can make these bypass the second round of rolls.

I’ll write more on this subject later.  Another lunch is over.