Anyone Running Mercenaries Capaigns?

[hellbender]

Ah, you "skimmed it", so ergo you are not clueless, eh? *coff*

*shrug*

I would imagine clueless would be making a statement based on no exposure to the product. Yes, I skimmed through it, read the table of contents, and came to the conclusion that I had better ways to spend $30. The art alone put me off, but I was willing to look further. Nothing in the book jumped out in any way as being something that any competent DM couldn't come up with on their own. I had a preview of the cover art beforehand, and preferred another offering, but that is the one that AEG went with. The cover art is pretty good, in stark contrast to the interior work, in my opinion.

Maybe 'Evil' and 'Monster' had sent me down the path to shunning AEG. 'Gods' is supposed to be better than those two, but nothing leapt out at me either.

Skimming is what those of us do who do not want to throw money away. I believe most products can be surveyed in a few moments, as I rarely have the opprotunity to write a thesis on each d20 product before I buy it, and my FLGS has a no returns policy on rpg products.

hellbender

 

[Psion]

I would imagine clueless would be making a statement based on no exposure to the product. Yes, I skimmed through it, read the table of contents, and came to the conclusion that I had better ways to spend $30.

Fair enough. It's up to you to decide if it "appealed" to you. That really isn't what I was taking issue with. What I was really taking issue with was the characterization "overpriced". Price and quality are rarely correlated, and it seems like what you meant to say was "uninspiring." "Overpriced" to me, is a more objective measurement of the price of the product compared to the page count and production values of the product -- which examining the text density, layout, and art, I would say is fairly high.

Maybe 'Evil' and 'Monster' had sent me down the path to shunning AEG. 'Gods' is supposed to be better than those two, but nothing leapt out at me either.

I'd say that "Monster" is better than "Gods". Evil is the worst of the books IMO, having hackneyed last-minute content and attrocious layout.

 

[hellbender]

Now these are points I can agree with. I mentioned overpriced in the respect that, too me, the page count compared to my past experience wasn't impressive. And I will also consent that my past experience with recent AEG products has prejudiced my opinion of Mercenaries.

And of what I have seen, 'Monster' seems to be the best as well, and it has a ton of errors. Now, I am not saying that 'Mercenaries' won't work for some DMs, either, just not for this one. I feel a lot of the material that I saw was rather generic in nature, but can be expounded upon.

And now, back to the nature of the thread........


hellbender

 

[Voadam]

Re: Mercenaries Capaigns?

So how would you go about setting up a mercenary game?

Everytime I watch the first 2 DVDs of Berserk I get inspired to run one.

I guess I should read the Black Company since everyone keeps talking about it. Sounds like a good series.

I guess I should also pick up Mercenaries from AEG but I'm hoping one of the web sites I do stuff for will get a review copy for me. I know, I'm cheap. What can I say?

Any historical books that bear looking into?

I was thinking that if I did run such a campaign, I'd have to limit the amount of spellcasting power so that magic, at least as a class, was rare for both divine and arcane uses.

Anyone run any campaigns like this?

Scarred Lands has some great legions but it's kinda high fantasy and to be honest, I think the way they do their companies are kinda stupid. One of 'em, the Crimson Legion I think, sticks with one weapon, one armor. "Yeah, I'd love to use this magical two handed sword, but I'm going to stick with the rapier..." More like an adventuring company than a mercenary one.

I didn't run a merc campaign but I played in one. It started off as my PCs background in a 2e game, he was the myrmidon kit and being an elite merc was his hook. He always sought out the powerful leaders of wherever to find work. Later in the game he switched classes to mage but kept the merc attitude and kept going around selling his sword and staff for dangerous work and the rest of the party sort of followed along. It was not low magic (I learned spells from drow and mongol shamans and went spelljamming eventually became a spy for the elves signing up to serve with the scro as a . . . mercenary for my cover and I was once almost hired by drow against other drow).

It never got to great huge battles for prolonged periods of time (a few short term big ones, though) but it was a lot of fun and made DM plot hooks easy (The elves want you to do this now)

 

[JoeGKushner]

Anyoe know any good rules for making a mercenary company? I have Rifts Mercenaries so I may steal some ideas from there.

I'm on book 2 of the Black Company. Well written, but I don't see a lot of use for a campaign not based in it.

Stil looking over AEG's book Mercenaries but I'm still cheap.

Otherworld has a Born of Blood hardcover in their Vertigo line up that covers Mercenaries. Any one see any previews of that one?

 

[talien]

Mercenaries: Born of Blood

Hi Joe!

It's coming, it's coming! I swear! No really!

I've been told September. It will be there. In fact, I think you provided some input on what you wanted to see when I asked. I hope you'll be pleased.

An entire chapter is devoted to mercenary companies, creating them, recruiting them and maintaining them.

When I get the chance, I'll post a list of books and movies I used as reference or suggested reading. It will probably be in M:BOB too.

I've posted a preview of what I wrote (as opposed to what gets printed, I cannot guarantee it's the same thing) over at the Otherworlds' site (http://www.otherworlds.cx). You should check that out to see if it sounds like what you're looking for.

Mike "Talien" Tresca
Author of Mercenaries: Born of Blood
http://www.retromud.org/talien

 

[JoeGKushner]

Couldn't find the preview.

On another note, I stumbled across the Mercenaries supplement for Bluffside. Excellent web enhancement. I would've loved to have seen some common formations and battle tactics for each group though.

I'm adding that Mercenary Captain PrC to the list of things to add to my standard notes as it's one of the better PrCs for handling Mercs. I'll have to do some more comparisions to the other one from The Hunt setting to see which one I want or how they interact overall.

 

[talien]

The Preview

It's in the forum, here:

http://www.otherworlds.cx/sforums/t...+Here!&Forum_Title=Mercenaries:+Born+of+Blood

Mike "Talien" Tresca
http://www.retromud.org/talien

 

[JoeGKushner]

Ah yes. I recall that thread now.

Sounds liek it will complement the book nicely.

Is it going to be using D20 Modern or just ideas put into the modern era?

Will it include an appropriate list of books, media and other goods to draw inspiration from? One of Forbidden Kingdoms biggest failures I think. Not a heart breaker or anything but putting some type of reference in there would've been a great asset.

How about some ideas on what the Prestige Classes are going to be like? Will they be more mercenary or more military? The two do overlap of course. I'm interested to see how 'magic' goes. In many campaigns it seems a default that mages, sorcrers and psions really don't join up with legions and those that do aren't fire ball casters but subtle types like Goblin, Silent, and One-Eye from the Black Company.

Some from the variosu Vlademar series by Mercedes Lackey are a little more flashy but even they don't control such vast amounts of firepower as say a 10th level wizard. Or when they do, they choose not to use it that way unless they have no other choice.

 

[talien]

As much as I'd love it to be D20 Modern, the book was finished quite a bit before D20 Modern was ready for the public. So it will put ideas into the modern era. It's meant to be compatible with Forbidden Kingdoms, Dungeons & Dragons, and even science fiction settings.

It will definitely include a list of media. At least, that's what I wrote, I haven't seen the final product yet. It's a fairly extensive bibliography. The bibliography matches the three eras in the book -- historical, modern, and futuristic mercenaries.

There are two new classes (Professional and Soldier of Fortune) and a bunch of new prestige classes. The prestige classes range in scope -- from historical to fantastic. They are all sharply focused on mercenaries and their application in a military setting. The prestige classes include:

Auszug (historical) - Elite polearm warriors.
Ballestriere (historical) - Crossbow specialists.
Commercialist (modern) - Jack of all trades mercenary.
Cormorant (fantasy) - Demonic mercenary who writes infernal contracts.
Condottiere (historical) - Mercenary leaders.
Ergydlym (historical) - Archer specialists.
The Forlorn (historical) - Doomed criminals wielding 2-handed swords who fight to earn their freedom.
Gaesatae (historical) - Ferocious barbarian mercenaries.
Gallowglass (historical) - Highlander mercs.
Gurkhali (modern) - Knife-wielding specialists.
Illusionary (fantasy) - Mercenary wizards who sell their illusions as mercenary armies.
Leigonnaire (modern) - The modern mercenary who would rather forget his past.
Necrenary (fantasy) - Mercenary wizards who use corpses as mercenary rmies.
Psychic Assassin (fantasy) - Hired killers who sell their powers to the highest bidder.
Specialist (futuristic) - The technological mercenary who specializes in hacking and surveillance.
Stradiot (historical) - Terrifying mounted headhunters.
Traditionalist (modern) - The cigar-chomping, gun-toting merc we all know and love.

In general, I didn't go the "blaster for hire" route. It really changes the tone of the book. I do talk about the implications, but I wanted to focus much more on tactics. You'll note the four fantasy prestige classes use subtle magic -- none of them are lobbing fireballs into opposing armies. I used The Black Company as inspiration. They had magic, they used it to even the odds, but it never overshadowed good military tactics and the need for a mercenary army.

I basically tried to get as much information about mercenaries as I could into one book. I really hope it does well.

Mike "Talien" Tresca
http://www.retromud.org/talien