[PR] Last Hero in Scandinavia

[JohnNephew]

It's new product announcement time...we've been remiss in not posting these here regularly enough.

This one is part of our Coriolis line with dual stats -- d20 and one of our proprietary game systems. But enough of my yakkin...

LAST HERO IN SCANDINAVIA
A Coriolis(tm) Supplement for RUNE and the D20 SYSTEM

Something’s rotten in Scandinavia. Your chieftain’s treacherous brother has struck down your valorous leader, ghosts roam the land, and dark forces are gathering. Do you:

A. Stand around wearing black, worrying about your life in a series of whiny soliloquies?

B. Grab your axe and WREAK BLOODY VENGEANCE ON THE FORCES OF DARKNESS!

If you correctly answered "B," then Last Hero in Scandinavia is for you! This action-packed campaign contains rules for both the D20 System and the Rune roleplaying game. It features ferocious goblins, dangerous steamtech weapons, and a plot that could destroy the entire Viking civilization. That's not all, though. Inside you’ll find:

• Competitive scoring rules so you can play D20 to win
• Fast and furious mass combat rules for both Rune and D20
• New monsters like the undead bone tree, and rules for creating Rune boss monsters
• Saga rules for single-GM Rune campaigns
• 20+ hours of non-stop bonecrunching action!

Author: Chris Aylott
Description: 8.5" x 11", 112 pages, perfect bound
Stock No. AG3403
ISBN 1-58978-036-1
Suggested Retail Price: $19.95 (US)

Shipping to Distributors in June 2003

 

[Mark]

It's new product announcement time...we've been remiss in not posting these here regularly enough.

Your voice of reason is often missed. Can you tell us more about the Mass Combat Rules? How extensive and detailed are they? Can they stand alone for use in any d20 genre? If not, where would they best be used and what else might you need to just put together a big medieval/fantasy battle of large proportions?

 

[JohnNephew]

Re: Re: [PR] Last Hero in Scandinavia

Can you tell us more about the Mass Combat Rules? How extensive and detailed are they?

You know...I haven't read the manuscript yet. I'll ping Michelle (editor) and Chris (author) and see if they can step in with some insights.

 

[spacecrime.com]

Re: Re: [PR] Last Hero in Scandinavia

I just want to say that there is nothing scarier than a publisher with an electric cattle prod. Not that this has anything to do with anything, especially my sudden appearance in this thread.

Can you tell us more about the Mass Combat Rules? How extensive and detailed are they?

Let me start with what they're not. They're not "two armies lay smackdown on each other" rules. These rules can do that kind of thing, but it's not what they're intended to do.

What these rules are intended for is those moments when you say, "You know, I'd really like to unleash 60 goblins' worth of carnage on my PCs and not be rolling dice all night." If you liked the Mines of Moria scenes in the LotR movies, then these are the rules for you. They let you do big fights starring little parties of PCs, with lots of opportunities for the players to do cool stunts and make meaningful tactical decisions.

Can they stand alone for use in any d20 genre?

Yes! They'll work as written for any game that's reasonably close to the standard D20 rules.

The rules also work for any opponent you want to use, though they're not as useful for powerful characters with lots of special abilities. (OTOH, they're very useful for running battles against a powerful individual with a lot of slavering minions. They also handle the age-old "Seven Samurai" problem.)

The best way I can sum up what we've done is that we've created a method for streamlining standard combat and reducing recordkeeping while preserving all your characters' tactical options and abilities. More head-crunching, less number-crunching, more fun.

cheers,

 

[Mark]

This sounds very promising indeed! Thanks for the quick response (cattle prod, or not ). Now for the question I damned well should have asked before but in my fervor forgot to include. What level of OGC is in that section? And to follow that up, would a burgeoning young game publisher (or me, if we remove the "young" part of that) be likely to be able to utilize that work that you've done to either expand on it or adapt it to their own medieval/fantasy releases for the same purpose (i.e. Mass Combat) or are you retaining enough of those rules that one would be better off starting from scratch?

 

[spacecrime.com]

All of the new D20 rules are open and ready to share! (Well, they'll be ready to share in June, but you know what I mean.)

cheers,

 

[JohnNephew]

To reinforce what Chris is saying, our general policy is to make as much d20 rules material OGC as is humanly possible. To get an idea of how we've handled it in past dual-stat books, take a peek at Burning Shaolin or The Ascension of the Magdalene at your local game store. (In AOTM, check out how open the d20 adaptations of mechanomancy and avatar rules are, for example.)

RUNE is a licensed game, so it does require approval from the licensor (Human Head Studios). That's the one thing that might stuff some of what we expect to be open back into the bag. I expect they'll just be concerned to make certain that various trademarks and distinctive things from their "world" are designated as Product Identity.

As far as mass combat rules, I expect it will be possible to lift them out verbatim for other products under the OGL.

 

[Horacio]

As far as mass combat rules, I expect it will be possible to lift them out verbatim for other products under the OGL.

WOW, that would be great!