Castrum Infinitum - An Unsatisfying Skirmish Experiment

I've been watching a lot of videos on solo skirmish games this past week and have been cobbling together terrain out of cardboard and interesting looking bits of trash.  I was watching a Chris McDowall stream demoing Mythic Bastionland and procrastinating painting my terrain when I had an idea for a skirmish game of my own.

 The Idea

Character Creation

Allocate d4, d6, and d8 each to a stat: Melee, Ranged, Guard, and Aid. One stat will be left blank. (Use the die name, not the rolled result of said die).

Roll d4, d6, and d8 together, the summed result is the character's starting Wound value.

Everyone takes one free dagger. Select an additional weapon and one armor.

Weapons

Dagger - Melee d6, Ranged d4

Short Sword - Melee d6, Guard d4

Long Sword (Two-Hand) - Melee d8, Guard d6

Axe (Two-Hand) - Melee d10, Guard d4

Bow - Ranged d10

Armor

Shield - Guard d6, Aid d4

Light Armor - Guard d6

Heavy Armor - Guard d10, -1" Movement

Combat

Each combatant gets one movement (4 inches) and one action.

The action may be used for another movement, an attack, aiding an ally, or activating a piece of terrain.

Attacking

To make an attack, roll the appropriate stat die (Melee or Ranged) as well as the relevant die for any equipped weapon. The target will roll their Guard die as well as any armor and defensive weapon dice. If your Attack roll total exceeds the defenders Guard roll total, then you break their guard. Once their guard is broken, any unused attack dice are delivered as wounds.

Example: Jonathan is attacking a Goblin. Jonathan has a d6 in Melee and a d10 from his axe, he rolls his dice getting a 4 and an 8. The goblin has a d4 in Guard, a d4 from his sword, and a d6 from his shield; the goblin rolls and gets 2, 1, and 4 totaling 7. Jonathan's 8 is enough to break the Goblin's guard, dealing 4 Wound from the unused Attack die.

Aiding

If you are able to successfully break an enemy's guard but do not have any additional dice to wound it with, you can add your Aid die to an ally's attack against the same enemy this turn.

You may forgo your action to give your Aid die to any ally this turn.

KO'd

After the battle, any characters who took max Wound and were knocked out roll a d20 to decide their fate.

1. Dead - Hang their helm in the great hall
2. Dead - Hang their helm in the great hall
3. Injured - Decrease Melee one die level
4. Injured - Decrease Ranged one die level
5. Injured - Decrease Guard one die level
6. Injured - Decrease Aid one die level
7. Injured - Decrease Magic one die level
8. Injured - Decrease Wound by the result of a d6
9. Scrambled - Sit out the next game
10. Scrambled - Sit out the next game
11. Winded - Sit out first round of the next game
12. Winded - Sit out first round of the next game
13. Scraped and bruised but okay
14. Scraped and bruised but okay
15. Experienced - Increase Melee one die level
16. Experienced - Increase Ranged one die level
17. Experienced - Increase Guard one die level
18. Experienced - Increase Aid one die level
19. Experienced - Increase Magic one die level
20. Experienced - Increase Wound by the result of a d6 

The World

The game would be set inside of a science-fantasy castle so large that it engulfs the entire kingdom.  When the King was just a boy, the court Wizard locked himself in seclusion in his laboratory.  Now the King is an old man and evil is banging on the castle gate.  He has gathered a handful of knights who are not disposed guarding the gate, and sent them into the heart of the castle to search for the Wizard.

 

 

 

 

The Test 

I made three characters and did a little test against five goblins and it was not fun.  The idea at the heart of the of the system, having a different die for each stat and item, meant that I was spending as much time searching for the right die as I was moving my little guys around.  Also I really hate the tactile experience of picking up d4's.  This seems easily remedied, besides I only ran one little test game, but my big realization was that the rules felt really nice and elegant to think about but were clunky and tedious in play.  An hour typing up rules and moving minis around seems like a cheap price to learn that lesson.

 

 

The Conclusion

I started to retool my system but decided to stop.  I don't have any real experience with tabletop war games, mostly role playing games.  I have Space Station Zero and The Doomed sitting on my bookshelf as well as Five Parsecs from Home and Stargrave in the mail.  I'd been putting off actually playing any of them.  I'm not sure if it was daunting learning the new rules or if I wasn't happy with the minis I had on hand or what it was, but this little jaunt game design has gotten me excited all over again.  Once I've played through those books I MIGHT revisit this idea with a better point of view, or maybe I'll fall in love with one of the other games and won't really have much else to say in this space, either way I had a fun evening thinking about dice and pushing little plastic people around.  I am rolling up Space Station Zero characters in another window right now!