What do you guys think would be a good setting for a skirmish warbands with a campaign system game a la Mordheim or Frostgrave?
I was thinking either Gladiators or warbands in a science fantasy setting, with lots of different factions and differentiation between soldiers and such.
Bump
It's usually for a very simple motive, even if the setting itself is not specified:
>warbands are fighting over treasure and magic stuff in the destroyed city of Frostgrave
>warbands are fighting over treasure and magic stuff in the destroyed city of Mordheim
>gangs are fighting over loot and archeotech in the underhive of Necromunda
If they're more faction oriented than independent groups or mercs, then they could be part of a military whose job it is to go guerilla and disrupt the enemy as much as possible. More like Kill Team than Mordheim. In which case, replace treasure and magic with a requisition and renown system for military merit, plus a campaign system that could be used to track faction progress.
The setting should set up the basic rules of:
>there's a lot of different dudes in different factions
>they have reason to fight
>there's a central goal each player is fighting for or against
And the rest is filling. Could be they found alien artifacts on a backwater planet like Borderlands, or they're plundering a city that got fucked over, or they're fighting in a new colony world that's in dispute, or there's some kind of neat resource that's on a planet locked in a neutral zone, so they use mercs to launch raids and mining/harvesting/gathering operations on it. Something like that.
I've toyed with a few ideas. One was a sci-fantasy setting where a colony stumbles on a massive underground alien ruins, so team wander into them for treasure.
DRAGONSLAYER!
One player controls heroes, the other player controls minions and monsters.
Assymetric, objective based game with gameplay ranging from "kill all the fucking goblins" to "Ohshitno a dragon!"
Build cool dungeon and ruined cities or castle terrain, rescue maidens, swordfuck ogres, get some use out of those all poor warhammer minis you have lying around.
Kind of a neat idea. How are we gonna stop one guy from always being on the monster side though?
Like Lord of the Rings did it, players take turns playing the good and bad sides unless one player just has a blast playing heroes and the other loves being monsters.
Also a good way to encourage people to build both a hero and a minion & monsters collection, which means they're always ready to introduce new players to the game by having 2 warbands.
Besides, you can totally play hero on hero or monster on monster if you think that would be cooler.
>OI you lot, fuck off, we saw the dragon first! -WHAT? I need the dragons head for a quest, Knave, have at thee!
>This dungeons is not big enough for both of us, goblin on skellington violence NAO!
Take a note from Drake the Dragon Wargame, everyone is working for a dragon.
I really like Gladiators and Bronze age/classical feel setting, but you don't have to turn the idea of science fantasy. Romans and greeks with steam tech, Mesopotamian/persians with electricity or the hell you want.
Those are good guidelines I think. I sometimes get lost in the settings though, I believe they should be really important, because the more immersive they are, the more attractive the game will be. For example Mordheim has that cool exploration theme to it, whereas Kill team doesn't.
A game about gladiators be it ancient, fantasy or sci fi, would have an improvement theme, and also some stuff beside gladiatoral fights, just like the Spartacus series for example, but would have no exploration theme at all.
Which are the best of those themes for a game like this?
That's a good one. Something like Warhammer Skirmish but with a campaign system added. I'd say that there should be factions, each with their own objectives, just like the poster I quoted above said.
Me and my friend thought about that for a while before, but I couldn't see ancient times with gunpowder realistically speaking. Although I admit it's really interesting. Right now I just want to add cool stuff and fuck realism, but I don't know if it's the way to go.
Also, what do you guys think it's best, complex mechanics or simple mechanics? I mean, I don't want too much bookkeeping, but I don't want to make a game like SoBH either, because I feel it lacks deepness in some ways.
It's a great game don't get me wrong. But a campaign-based game should have a bit more stats.
I think it's best to have a really good campaign system, really developed and with lots of random tables and options, and have the gameplay be as simple as possible, without it being idiotic. But I'd like to hear your oppinions