Eden Studios' Fields of Blood... is it good?

[mattcolville]

Allow me to add to what my esteemed colleague said.

Units have wounds. Most units have two wound points, giving them basically Healthy, Wounded, and Dead as possible states.

This makes it possible to keep track of massive armies with very little bookkeeping. We had hoped people would use Unit Counters that had a Healthy side and a Wounded side. Then there's no bookkeeping at all. One a unit is damaged, you flip the counter over to show it's wounded. If it gets damaged again, remove it.

Units of very powerful creatures have more wounds, but these will (in most 'normal' campaigns) be few enough in number on the battlefield that tracking them is not likely to be a problem. You do not lose men from a unit, you lose the unit. (For campaign play, there are rules for forming new units from the remnants of 'dead' units after a battle; a 'dead' unit is one which cannot fight anymore as a unit; there may well be surviving individuals)

Right. Units aren't "destroyed" in the sense of "every man in them was killed," rather they break, meaning they're no longer able to function as a unit. Partly as a result of deaths, but also because of confusion and breaking morale.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Quick Question

I do have a few more questions as I read through it.

I'm a little confused by the explanations for racial attitudes. For the column for elf, going down, it notes hostile with huamns. For humans with elf, it notes friendly. Now does this mean that elves attack humans and humans trade peacefully with them? Perhaps a rule that only one step can be allowed between races so that elves might be neutral? From the description of hostile, "even casual contact between members of the two races at a pub or crossroad is likely to result in immediate and undeclared violence and nations of the two races spend their time either in war or in tense cease-fires."

In the section on guilds, it has a cost feature. The cost feature mentions, something like say, 3,000 RPs per level, up to level 6, but notes that a newly constructed X can cast, say, 4th level spells. Does that mean a starting one costs 12,000 RPs or that it cost 3,000 RPGs for 4th level, 6,000 for 5th, and 9,000 for 6th? Temple at bottom of page 17 is my example here.

Someone asked what I'd like to see for a deluxe edition.

On page 13, I'd like to see a Decadent Civlization. Civilized comes close, but not quite what I'm thinking. Something where resources start very high, but continue to go down as time play moves on.

On page 15, for the Production section, I'd like to see all of the core races covered. No reason why halflings and gnomes shouldnt' be there, even though I can see why half-elves and half-orcs wouldn't be.

More quesitons/comments soon. I'm pretty far into the book but don't have all my notes.

 

[Silveras]

In the section on guilds, it has a cost feature. The cost feature mentions, something like say, 3,000 RPs per level, up to level 6, but notes that a newly constructed X can cast, say, 4th level spells. Does that mean a starting one costs 12,000 RPs or that it cost 3,000 RPGs for 4th level, 6,000 for 5th, and 9,000 for 6th? Temple at bottom of page 17 is my example here.

Here is how I understand it, let's see if I have it right.

The Temple is the middle-tier Church Guild. It costs 12,000 to build (it starts at level 4) and an additional 3,000 to upgrade to each of level 5 and level 6. It cannot be built until the population center reaches Village size, and it must be replaced with a Cathedral after the population center grows to a Small City but before it becomes a Metropolis (unless you don't mind doing without the assistance of the Church for a while).

 

[Gundark]

This makes it possible to keep track of massive armies with very little bookkeeping. We had hoped people would use Unit Counters that had a Healthy side and a Wounded side. Then there's no bookkeeping at all. One a unit is damaged, you flip the counter over to show it's wounded. If it gets damaged again, remove it.

So this sounds like the old battlesystem rules. Am I too far off in making this distinction? This sounds better than the group hit points that other mass combat rules have used.

 

[mattcolville]

So this sounds like the old battlesystem rules. Am I too far off in making this distinction?

I have no idea, I never played the Battlesystem. Though I played a civil war game and a napoleonic game that both used the same idea. The players used minis and had these little round plastic rings they would toss over a mini and hang on the spear if it was wounded. If a unit with a ring on it took another hit, it was taken off the board.

 

[mattcolville]

I do have a few more questions as I read through it.

I'm a little confused by the explanations for racial attitudes. For the column for elf, going down, it notes hostile with huamns. For humans with elf, it notes friendly. Now does this mean that elves attack humans and humans trade peacefully with them? Perhaps a rule that only one step can be allowed between races so that elves might be neutral? From the description of hostile, "even casual contact between members of the two races at a pub or crossroad is likely to result in immediate and undeclared violence and nations of the two races spend their time either in war or in tense cease-fires."

It should be possible for Race A to feel one way about Race B, and Race B to feel a different way toward Race A. I'm not sure Elves hating humans makes much sense, but Elves might be generally Unfriendly toward Gnomes, while Gnomes are Neutral or even Friendly toward Elves.

In the section on guilds, it has a cost feature. The cost feature mentions, something like say, 3,000 RPs per level, up to level 6, but notes that a newly constructed X can cast, say, 4th level spells. Does that mean a starting one costs 12,000 RPs or that it cost 3,000 RPGs for 4th level, 6,000 for 5th, and 9,000 for 6th? Temple at bottom of page 17 is my example here.

I can't answer this right now, as I don't have my book here.

Someone asked what I'd like to see for a deluxe edition.

On page 13, I'd like to see a Decadent Civlization. Civilized comes close, but not quite what I'm thinking. Something where resources start very high, but continue to go down as time play moves on.

On page 15, for the Production section, I'd like to see all of the core races covered. No reason why halflings and gnomes shouldnt' be there, even though I can see why half-elves and half-orcs wouldn't be.

I agree about the core races. If I have time, and Eden is amenable, I'll write up the other core races. The Decadent Civilization thing seems like something I'd let GMs handle on their own. The different types are simple, produce simple but effective differences, and if you want to make up your own, it's easy. But I think you'll find many people get this niggling feeling like one more Government Type is missing, but those people all have different ideas as to what that thing is. This says to me, as a designer, that we picked the right level of detail, and to make all those people happy would have required increasing the number of types to 20.

 

[Heretic Apostate]

Here is how I understand it, let's see if I have it right.

The Temple is the middle-tier Church Guild. It costs 12,000 to build (it starts at level 4) and an additional 3,000 to upgrade to each of level 5 and level 6. It cannot be built until the population center reaches Village size, and it must be replaced with a Cathedral after the population center grows to a Small City but before it becomes a Metropolis (unless you don't mind doing without the assistance of the Church for a while).

So how do you handle multi-deity Small Cities? Most cities, at least in the Forgotten Realms, lists as many as five deities that are worshipped. Sure, most of them might be shrines, but there's bound to be competing temples...

 

[Silveras]

So this sounds like the old battlesystem rules. Am I too far off in making this distinction? This sounds better than the group hit points that other mass combat rules have used.

Yes, I think in that sense they are about the same. Most units have Wound Levels of 2 (equivalent to 2 Hits in Battlesystem). Some units have more, though; usually the special units (PCs, Dragons, Giants, etc.).

 

[Silveras]

So how do you handle multi-deity Small Cities? Most cities, at least in the Forgotten Realms, lists as many as five deities that are worshipped. Sure, most of them might be shrines, but there's bound to be competing temples...

The ruler selects the deity at the time of construction. In essence, it is the ruler declaring support for that deity's followers, making them "primary" in that settlement.

 

[Eden Studios Inc]

Ok I've uploaded the following:

Chapter One: Introduction preview
http://www.edenstudios.net/odyssey/FoBintro.pdf

Record Sheets
http://www.edenstudios.net/odyssey/FoBrecordsheets.pdf

Counters
http://www.edenstudios.net/odyssey/FoBCounters.pdf

Hex Paper
http://www.edenstudios.net/odyssey/FoBHexpaper.pdf

Errata Page
http://www.edenstudios.net/odyssey/7005errata.html