Matakishi's Tea House

Ladies & Gentlemen, and you gamers at the back there, listen up.

With the not inconsiderable assistance of my gaming mates Hairy Dave and Trenton, we ran the first full playtest of the FUBAR rules last Friday evening. We used the Stargate One supplement as at least two of us are total SG freaks, to the extent that Trenton has a 28mm scale Stargate and a DHD.

As mentioned a few weeks yet we decided to use the Gauntlet scenario I had developed as it allowed us to use a range of forces and have about 30 figures per side. The Battle Report is being written up, with photos, and I'll put it up on the blog as a pdf in a day or three.

Other than that is was easy to learn, for the guys and the author (I write simple rules because I cannot remember complex ones), a number of key lessons were learnt.

Number one was that the cover save system did not work as expected. Indeed it didn't work very well at all. We began with the choice of cover or armour saves (SGC forces were getting a 6+ save and the Jafar a 5+). Result - massacre.

We discussed this at length and Trenton suggested that cover not give a save but make it more difficult for you to sight the enemy accurately and thus act as a modifier to the Shooting roll instead. We tried this and by jingo it worked. Note: you still have you armour save if you have one.

The density and solidity of the cover would define the modifier to shooting, but in any case shooting could not be made worse than 6+. Part of the logic behind this is that the periods FUBAR is designed to cover, CE 1890 to 40,000, are when actually aiming your weapon paid off because of the technological advancements in firearms.

Number two was Suppression.

 Now this has been the biggest FAQ since I launched FUBAR here and on the Blog. Originally it was a distillation of Forge of War's D-marker system. But both how it was written (badly and by me) and how it played caused no end of problems. In the white hot heat of the playtest the guys began finding ways to use it better.

My original idea, as you know, was that some troops lost their bottle and went to ground. This was a way the player could keep them alive but it incurred an activation penalty. In short it didn't work and began introducing issues of splitting fire for cover saves for the whole unit. Not a good situation for a set of rules that are supposed to be simple.

I have mulled this over for a couple of days and, taking in some ideas from Dave and Trenton, have decided to change the whole thing.

What I am proposing is that we drop 'Suppression' and replace it with a condition I call 'Shaken' (thanks Dave). Depending upon how well trained the troops are the player can put one to four of them into a shaken condition instead of being killed outright. Question - is a variable number better or should we go for a simple set number like three or four?

On this squad's next activation each shaken member induces a -1 penalty to the activation roll, though you still activate on a 6+. Whether the squad acitvates or not the shaken guys become unshaken, but for that activation they cannot shoot or assault. They will fight back if assaulted though and can move.

For example, your squad takes five hits from shooting and you decide to take three casualties and leave two men shaken. You lie them down to indicate their status. On the next activation you take a -2 to activate. If you make it you can stand the guys up and act normally, but those two guys cannot fire or assault. If you failed the squad stands around looking sheepish while their leader has a snit, but the two shaken guys do become unshaken.

This represents men becoming demoralized and shocked by the weight and accuracy of the incoming fire, and possibly the death of their comrades. On the next activation the squad leader kicks them back into shape but cannot get them to do much more than move or take cover.

I have heard this described by friends who have come back from conflict zones as 'fugue'. For a few moments you just can't handle all the shock and horror going on all around you.

So what do people think?

I am intending to integrate these into a second edition fairly soon if I get no well thought through objections. As usual people can do what they will with the rules, so if you like the old way of playing just carry on.

The second edition shall be in a three column, portait format as I have found with Dead Simple that this releases up to half a column of free space with which I can improve the clarity of the rules themselves.