Idea Concerning "Numbers" in RoKK

It's been heavily discussed before, that numbers are generally looked down upon, but that also some things would just need numbers to be effective as a control or rule. So I had a thought: For such systems, which would likely be military and kingdom-related, we probably should have numbers. It would be better for such things to have numbers, as we need numerical representations to effectively use any systems created. Kings, commanders, etc. would all have to be used to dealing with numbers rather than concepts or vague statements. Of course, we could always make these systems "skeletal", so that the actual effects are determined through roleplay, though these serve as a basis for the roleplay.

Thoughts?

Well here's the battle system I always pictured...

You have your two conflicting armies, and your two conflicting generals, with the only numbers involved being just how many troops you have, and what type they are. The system is fairly simple, in that different types of troop do better against other types, and such...like Spearmen are good against Calvary, Calvary are good against archers, and archers are good against spearmen, but perhaps with a little more depth.

The execution of this is a bit trickier, but I think it's both doable and well worth the effort.

It all relies on the interaction of Generals with the GM, in that to start off with the Defending player tells the GM the disposition of his forces, what he has in reserve, what he has in hiding, and what forces he has waiting in ambush, or what have you.

The GM then describes the positioning of the readily apparent forces too the Attacking player, who then explains the disposition of his own forces and whatever tricks he might have up his sleeves to the GM, after which he then explains his first move, which is then described in readily apparent detail by the GM to the defensive player, who makes the counter move.

As for the combat itself, the GM will have ultimate authority with regards to when a unit breaks, who wins and who looses, employing whatever means he wishes to make his ultimate decision, although it can be overturned at the behest of at least two other GMs...or something...

Mostly a wip but I think it warrants a beta match or two, if you guys are up for it.

I've figured for a long time that all we need in combat is the two opposing commanders, perhaps not even a GM there but to make sure it's fair, becuase it'd be the same as battling between two characters. The quality of the roleplayers determines both the epicness of combat and how fair it is, as in our roleplaying it's up to the receiver to determine the accuracy of an attack as well as its damage.

Well I figured the GM would be there to get a complete list of both commander's assets from the start so there is no pulling crap out of your ass shenianigenry, and to make the battlefield descriptions less redundant in that they are being described by a single indifferent perspective as opposed to two opposing view points...aside from the character soldiers participating, but that's a whole OTHER box of worms I really don't want to open just yet...

With battles you have many more participants than between two people, and although accidents may happen in a character fight (oh no, i swung my sword too hard so my shoulder dislocated!) there are many more things in a large battle that are up to chance. Sections of the army may arrive late, you're heavily trained infantry who fight with giant, impenetrable shields or long spears might end up breaking formation in difficult terrain, a unit commander might panic, etc. You get the gist of that. In these cases I'd say it is necessary to have a game master and some things that are determined by dice.

The question would be, what do these dice affect? Whilst it is silly to say that a GM should determine everything with his dice and personal point of view on military tactics, some controls need to be done to avoid the problem of stupidity and godmoding.

Let me give an example of how I think a battle should go down. Say we have an area in the rules that has some tables set up with tactics, efficiency, possible fuckups, and what have you, with the dice results and their rough level of success, failure and perhaps even a few rolls for special spectacular results.

The GM or the players roll these, put them down in a seperate post and then move to make something of it. And now I have to go to dinner so I'll be back soon.

Going to turn RoKK into a tabletop pen and paper, are we?

Well, it is difficult to get fairness. I hope we don't have to go so far as to constantly have to look at sheets... but mainly I want rping and easy accessibility. A lot of the fun things for the nations will be growing, expanding, describing the territory around them and their own territory and acting on that.

Some general basics would have to be put down for the people inhabiting areas. Battles would be happening but I imagine there would also be characters heading each realm who might decide to marry into another realm, brainwash the other emperor, etc.

Ok I'm willing to allow dye rolls on certain situations outside of the commanders control...but that being said I don't want a battle system to turn into a game of warhammer, where EVERYTHING is about dice, and I'm not sure how easy it'll be to come up with a system to decide what is and is not controlled by dice rolls.

Perhaps if you could specify a bit more bronx...

Well, like I said, dice rolls will be made for some things but the course of the battle and what happens (outside of the mishaps, etc) should be controlled by the players. Do you get what I say? I mean, we have to admit that there is a great difficulty in making a battle interactive but not a "game" without someone being overbearing on your military tactics and everything getting all subjective up in this place.

I just have the image of yelling at someone who doesn't like my opinion that their army of red-fox people with perfect abs and armour that exposes said abs got slaughtered because they all charged a phalanx formation without shields, claiming that they are immortal samurai faggots.

Well I highly doubt anyone like that would make it as far as a general in our little game here...

But I get what your saying, and I understand your trepidation. That being said, I think anyone we trust enough to GM in the first place, should be able to judge a battle in a fair manner.

Again Dice rolls, good to judge close calls and situation others can't control, but should not be an end all be all is what I'm saying. So are we gonna test this out, or what?

I agree with pretty much everything in Midget's post.