Fields of Blood: The Book of War - anyone else read it?

[Falkayn]

I've just read (most) of Field of Blood: The Book of War by Eden Studios. This is a great game supplement, and could be the foundation for a very fun PBEM game with people playing the various Regents (rulers) of Realms against each other and then adventuring when appropriate to fill in the details of events ...

Has anyone actually tried to do this yet?

Does anyone think this is a good idea and worth doing as a PBEM?

 

[trancejeremy]

I've done that basic thing (though not as a PBEM) with Birthright. Pretty fun.

Fields of Blood is more or less comparable. (A little more detail in FoB)

 

[Emiricol]

I have the book also! I have Strongholds & Dynasties from Mongoose, Empire! from AEG and Fields of Blood. FoB is the only one of the three that is not sitting in a box in my closet.

I haven't tried what you describe, but I think it could be quite fun, and the rules would probably handle it well.

 

[Falkayn]

I haven't tried what you describe, but I think it could be quite fun, and the rules would probably handle it well.

I have a friend who has tried to do this down here, but he ran into problems with too much work at uni - I'd really like to play in such a game, but can't find anyone on the web who is running one.

One option is to run the game myself - but I am free time poor as it is. Perhaps a GMless game is a real possibility? How would it be run? Start with a blank world map and each take 4 provinces and a basic set of starting assumptions?

 

[Geoff Watson]

I've been running a FoB game over the past couple of months.

I've been doing a fair bit via email, but getting together with the involved players for battle or major diplomacy.

There are a few problems and things missing with the rules, so I've come up with a bunch of house rules and changes.
A few spreadsheets make things a lot easier; creating units, realm income, etc.

Geoff.

 

[Eosin the Red]

Care to share?

I have a FoB conversion of a pretty big region that I am going to attempt here real soon.

Thanks,

(sig is an email link)

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

I've been running a FoB game over the past couple of months.

I've been doing a fair bit via email, but getting together with the involved players for battle or major diplomacy.

There are a few problems and things missing with the rules, so I've come up with a bunch of house rules and changes.
A few spreadsheets make things a lot easier; creating units, realm income, etc.

Geoff.

Geoff, I'd love to see your spreadsheets on unit creation.

I've had the book for a while and would like to run some sample combats to see how balanced it is, but just haven't had the time to put together any units.


Wulf

 

[Emiricol]

I'm in the same boat. Between all my hobbies, time to GM another game is just not there :/

 

[Falkayn]

I've been running a FoB game over the past couple of months.

I've been doing a fair bit via email, but getting together with the involved players for battle or major diplomacy.

There are a few problems and things missing with the rules, so I've come up with a bunch of house rules and changes.
A few spreadsheets make things a lot easier; creating units, realm income, etc.

Geoff, that sounds VERY interesting - particularly as you're in Sydney too.

I've seen some stuff I might house rule over myself, but I'd want to try it plain vanilla first just to see what comes up.

 

[Emiricol]

Geoff, I'd love to see your notes.

Here's where I'm at with a game I am considering putting together. What do you think?

• I've done up a map, and am considering playing/running a game of FoB. It'd be eight realms total - 4 human, and 1 each of Elf, Dwarf, Orc and Hobgoblin. Each player would dice for the order they pick races in. Then, each player would pick their capitol hex in the order of elf/dwarf/hobgoblin/humans/orc.
• Players would then each pick X number of hexes, but they have to be continuous. I'm thinking of 8 additional hexes each to give the game a sort of jump start; once the hexes were selected, the DM or player would roll as per p112 (Step 3) to see whether hexes adjacent to the capitol had a Thorpe, Hamlet or Village. Per the same section, the remaining hex would have a 50% chance to have a thorpe.
• I'll have a single custom rule to make large empires financially manageable (the rules penalize anything over 10 hexes quite heavily).
• Undecided whether I'll play or just DM.
• The game would progress at two game weeks per real week (Tuesday and Friday deadlines). That'd give people time to do their stuff. If they didn't have their turn in by a given time on deadline days, they'd simply take a pass that turn.
• Player actions would be via a messageboard I could set up, or better yet, via www.playbyweb.com or www.rpol.net.
• A simple backstory could be that the gods during a god war simply eliminated every person, every structure, except for a few small groups, and the game begins as these groups find themselves on the road to recovery.
• Between the map, the realm sheets and the yearly turn summary, it could be an interesting little campaign setting when done, with a rich recent history.
• As players came and went, new players could be found I am sure!