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[Parsely]

Any thoughts/additions?

Throw it at players and see what happens.

[Nerjin]

Well the game should be ready to go soon. Like... "I could do it today" soon. BUT I wanted to make use of this thread and post up the semi-final draft of the rules and see what the general thought of it was. Please tell me EVERYTHING wrong with it. No matter how small.

Spoiler: School Stats (click to show/hide)

School Name – This is the name of the gladiatorial school you manage. It affects nothing other than your personal choice. Choose wisely, there is a 100 gold fee to change the name due to the paperwork involved.

School Titles – A list of tournaments you’ve won. This helps you keep track of what tourney’s you still need to complete in order to qualify for certain higher ranked tournaments. If you mouse over the title you’ll see what tournament you won to receive that title.

Fame – The Amount of Fame your school currently has. Exciting fights and winning tournaments increase this number while boring fights or losing too often will decrease it. Fame is very important as it affects random events as well as money earned from fighting. Most importantly though your Fame Level will go up with this number.

Fame Level – Determines the amount of Gladiators you can have in your school as well as the caliber of gladiators you can recruit. If you mouse over the Fame Level you will see the amount of Fame you have as well as how much fame you need to reach the next level of Fame.

Money – The amount of cash you can dedicate towards your school that week. As long as this number is positive you are in good hands. If it becomes negative though your gladiators might start deserting. You gain money by winning battle and tournaments as well as a small amount that you dedicate from your personal account each week. It goes down as your purchase gladiators or deal with upkeep. You can mouse over Money in order to see the rate of Upkeep you are dealing with.

Upkeep – The amount of money you lose each week due to pampering your gladiators, maintaining their equipment, and buying them food. Higher numbers of gladiators can increase upkeep but this is usually offset by your being able to enter more battles at once. You also choose Low [-25%], Medium, or High [+25%] upkeep. Lower upkeeps might make certain members of your school desert though High upkeep requires you to win matches pretty consistently. The upkeep you choose can also affect random events.

Lord Type: This is your profession outside of the gladiatorial arena [which is more of a hobby for you than anything] and it grants a certain benefit to your school throughout its life cycle. If you mouse over the Lord Type you will see what benefit it gives you.

Surgeon – You are a reknowned surgeon and medical professional. As such your gladiators regenerate an extra 10% health per week, on top of the regeneration they already had.

Merchant – You are a very wealthy merchant who knows how to allocate their money in the most efficient way possible, as such upkeep is lessened by 10%

Military – You are excellent at teaching others the art of war and formations. As such each gladiator gains an extra 5% experience per battle.

Blacksmith – You work long and hard on weapons and armor for your gladiators. While the arms usually go to the army, you manage to sneak some of your better armors to your gladiators to give them the edge. Each gladiator of yours gains +5 bonus to armor.

Philosopher – Your gladiators all study your personal ideals and incorporate them into their own lives. Whether your way of life is healthier or your gladiators are just very nice and let you pretend it is doesn’t matter. What does matter is that all of your gladiators gain +10% health.

Rancher – Early to bed, early to rise, early to eat, early, early, early. You do everything earlier than other people and your gladiators are forced, pretty much, to do the same. As such each gladiator of yours gains a +10 to initiative.

Let’s take a look at an example school:

School Name: The Example School for Exampler Examples
School Titles: [The ESEE has won no titles, so this wouldn’t usually appear, but it is shown here for example purposes.]
Fame Level: 0
Money: 100gp [The Starting amount… The ESEE hasn’t done very much at all…[Upkeep: The Minimum amount… The Arena does charge some money in order to maintain its facilities from ALL schools.]]
Lord Type: Philosopher
Roster: [0/1] [This is the [Amount of Gladiators/Max Amount] that your school can, and hopefully will, possess]
None [This is where the Gladiators of your school will appear. If you mouse over them you can see their stats! Furthermore, Green names are above 50% health, Red is at or below 50%, and Grey’d names are in critical condition.]

Spoiler: Gladiator stats (click to show/hide)

Fame Level – the lowest fame level required to hire this unit. [Units can upgrade past your current fame level (and often will) but cannot be hired “out of the box”] [*Note: This stat is only shown while purchasing gladiators]

Unit Name – The Name, Class, and Race of the unit. You may, at any time, change their name with no consequences. Upon purchase you must give them a name, otherwise the league will give them a name.

Size – Only six units may be on your team in any given battle, Large units take up two of those spaces. [*Note: Will only be shown if the unit is large.]

HP [Regen%] – If a unit reaches 0 HP they are in critical condition and taken out of the fight. Units will be unable to partake in fights until they are ‘revived’. Units who are in critical condition still take up space in your school and will NOT have any regeneration. Furthermore, if you mouse over your Gladiators HP their regeneration percentage will be shown. Regeneration is the amount of health your gladiator receives each week in a percentage.

Armor – All damage this unit receives is lessened by this percentage [30 armor would mean that: 100 damge – 30% = 70 Damage received] [*Note: This stat is only shown if applicable]

Immune – This unit takes no damage from these sources, ever. [*Note: This stat is only shown if applicable]

Ward – This unit takes no damage from the first attack of this source in a battle. Damage from this source outside of combat never affects this unit. [*Note: This stat is only shown if applicable]

Purchase Cost – If you want to buy this unit “Out of the Box” this is the price in gold you must pay. [*Note: This stat is only shown during purchase]

Revive Cost [Heal Cost] – A unit in critical condition requires medical care. This is the amount of money you must pay in order to revive them. If you mouse over the Revive Cost you will also see the number of gp you must pay per health point you pay to heal your gladiator.[*Note: This stat is only shown if the unit is in critical condition or during purchase/level up.]

XP [Level/XP Killed] – The amount of XP this unit needs to class change/level up. When they reach this number you select what unit they will become. If they are at their highest unit type they simply get a small increase to all stats. Likewise you can choose to have the unit simply get an increase to stats instead of leveling, though this is usually less beneficial. If you mouse over the XP needed you will see what level your gladiator is as well as how much XP they give the enemy team if they are defeated.

Initiative – This amount shows, roughly, the place in the initiative order your unit will go.

Attack[1/2] [Source/Chance/Damage]– The name of the attack the gladiator uses in combat. If the unit has two attacks both attacks will target the same units. If you mouse over the attack name you will see its [Source/Chance/Damage].

Source – The source of the attacks damage. [Weapon, Earth, Fire, Wind, Water, Mind, Death, or Life]

Chance – The chance that an attack has to hit.

Reach: Adjacent/Any/All. Adjacent means that the unit can only attack units who are in the adjacent section [see battle for more details], Any means they can attack a single enemy unit regardless of relative positions, while all means that all enemies are targeted. Certain abilities, like Heal, target allies instead though the same rules apply.

Special: Certain attacks and units have special attributes not shared by most of their competition. If this is the case they will show up here.

Levels Into: These are the units that this unit will level into if they survive the arena long enough. If the unit is relisted here it means they will simply gain a small boost to stats upon leveling. [Peasants level into Peasants, for example] [*Note: This is only shown during purchase or Level Up]

Personality: Every Gladiator is a person/person-like entity and has a personality all its own that affects its performance. Unfortunately, when recruiting, you’re unlikely to know what their personality is like. Every gladiator has two personality traits that are revealed once you’ve bought it. Everything from wards, to extra health, damage, armor, and initiative, as well as certain special abilities that help your school exist. Unfortunately, on top of not seeing what they are prior to purchase, there are also negative personality traits each unit can have. If your gladiator has only one trait they are considered “Very X” meaning the bonus is doubled.

Endorsement: Each gladiator has a chance to catch the eye of a high ranking organization. This brings certain benefits such as reduced upkeep cost, increased armor, increased health, wards, and even immunities. These function much like personality except that you may change them as more offers come in. Each Endorsement has three levels [Bronze, Silver, and Gold] that increases the effect. You start with the Bronze rank in each endorsement however, and must work your way up towards Gold. Choose wisely though, if you give up a higher ranked endorsement and then go back to it you will start back at bronze. This will not be shown if your Gladiator does not have an endorsement.

So let’s take a quick look at the first unit the ESEE purchases: A Peasant who we will name Harold.

Name: Harold the Peasant [Human]
Size: Does not Appear [*Usually won’t even be shown]
HP: 40/40 [0/40 would indicate Harold was in Critical condition] [Mouse over the health to see how high his regeneration value is!]
Armor: 0 [*Usually wouldn’t be shown]
Immune: None [*Usually wouldn’t be shown]
Purchase Cost: 30gp [*Usually wouldn’t be shown]
Revive Cost: 10gp [*Usually wouldn’t be shown]
XP Next: 0/35 [XP/XP to next level up]
Initiative: 30 [50 is a decent initiative.]
Attack 1: Pitchfork [*Mouse over the attack to see its stats. All attacks follow the [Source/Chance to Hit/Range] method of things.
Attack 2: None [*Attack 2 is only shown if they have a second attack. Harold doesn’t but it is here for your study.]
Special: None. [*If Harold had a spectacular trait, such as Paralyze or Poison, it would be shown here. He doesn’t, so it usually wouldn’t even be shown. But again, the example must be full.]
Level Into: Mercenary, Thug [*This is shown only during purchase or Level up. If the latter the unit stats will be shown however Harold isn’t leveling right now so this wouldn’t normally be shown.]

Personality: Harold is very boring to talk to due to his lack of attributes.
Endorsement: None [*Wouldn’t normally be shone if there is no endorsement.]
 

[spoiler=The Turn]
The Turn can be divided into 5 Parts. Start, Event, Preparation, Battle, Wrap Up, End.
Start
The Start is just that. The start of the turn. This is when your income comes in and Upkeep is paid. Furthermore your Gladiators will report how much health they have regenerated at this time. Other than that though not much happens.
Event
The Event is a random occurrence that afflicts your team, though whether positive or negative is up to chance. The player usually has no input on this subject, but if you do the Event phase overlaps with preparation.
Preperation
This is the busiest part of the turn. This is when you pick which battle to participate in, see what leagues are upcoming, and pick the positioning and battle plan of your gladiators when they are going into a battle. The battle plan is gone into in more detail in the Battle section of this post.

Then there is a brief lull in the turn.

BUT there’s more! After all of the above takes place the Arena Runners post the matches to allow for gambling as well as the odds. If you gamble on a match [it cannot be one of yours] and win you can get a huge payout! This is where the gambling occurs. Then, after a set amount of time the battles begin.
Battle

This is the meat and potatoes of a gladiator’s life. Unfortunately you’re but a manager so it’s not something you take part in too much. All matches that you and your fellow Gladiator Schools took place in are recorded [in a sense] and posted in the…
Wrap Up

This is when the battles are talked about, recordings posted, and gambling results announced [payout occurs during the next weeks Start but you do see how much you’ll be getting from gambling]

This is also when you can purchase new gladiators if you want to and when the Endorsements come rolling in [hopefully].
The End
The end of the turn is rightfully boring. As the stadiums empty and patrons go home you are left with little other option than to go home yourself until next week when the games renew.

Spoiler: Battle (click to show/hide)

This is a real rough outline of how Battle will be handled. Each squad of Gladiators [up to six] fill in a grid that will look something like this.

[[Back 1 – Front 1 / Front A – Back A
Back 2 – Front 2 / Front B – Back B
Back  3 – Front 3 / Front C – Back C]]

*Note: Large units can take up a back/front or two adjacent fronts.

Adjacent, Any, and All
Anyway, units who must attack adjacent can only attack units who are adjacent to them. For example imagine the following playing field:

[[Armbrust – Fighter / Apprentice – Archer
Empty – Empty / Paladin – Empty
Armbrust – Knight / Empty – Archer]]

The Fighter, Knight, and Paladin all have the Adjacent attack tag, The Armbrusts and Archers have the Any tag, while the Apprentice has the All tag.

When the Apprentice’s turn comes up he makes his attack an it targets “All” the enemy units. So it would target the two Armbrusts, Fighter, and the Knight regardless of where they are.

Next the Archer [doesn’t matter which] goes. The Archer, having the Any tag, may attack a single enemy no matter where they are. So the Archer decides to attack the Armbrust. Seems easy enough.

The trouble is the Paladin, Fighter, and Knight have the Adjacent tag meaning they can only attack units that are adjacent to them on the map. Should be rather self explanatory but let’s make this a better diagram. A’s will stand for “Available Target” while N will stand for “Not Available. We will be assuming we’re doing this only for the Fighter.

[[N – Fighter / A – N
N – N / A – Empty
N – N / Empty – N]]

That should clear up any confusion but… What if the Paladin and Apprentice [who should never be in the front row, by the way] are dead or Critically Injured?… Is the Fighter useless? Not at all! Instead the Field changes, figuratively, to look like this:

[[Armbrust – Fighter / Archer
Empty – Empty / Empty
Armbrust – Knight / Archer]]


So the fighter can attack the top row archer, while the knight can attack the bottom row archer. But what if the Paladin had died? Could the Knight attack the [theoretically] still living Apprentice? The answer is yes. If there are no valid targets for an adjacent attacker in a row the adjacent attacker is allowed to attack anyone, so long as they are in the front row. The same applies to the back row when all the front row units are dead.
But how does combat work?

Combat is entirely out of your hands… You’re a manager remember? Still, you have some control. First off, you get to choose who competes in each fight your school is a part of. If you have twelve Gladiators in your school you can have them join in any number of fights so long as there is at least ONE gladiator participating and you meet the requirements for every fight. After that you can choose which gladiator participates in the fight and where. What do I mean by where?

Let’s say that you have Gladiator’s named: Al, Bob, Carl, David, Ernest, and Freddie. You get to choose where they will stand on the field. So you can have it look like this:

[[Al – Bob / Enemy Top Row
Carl – David / Enemy Center Row
Ernest – Freddie / Enemy Bottom Row]]

Or any other combination that you think will work out in your favor. Your declaration of position can be made public knowledge or secretly sent to the commissioner of the fight.

Well… That’s great and all but what else can I do? Well… One other thing. Your Gladiator’s have a total of two options in their fights: Attack or Defend. Attacking is pretty self explanatory – Your Gladiator will use its ability/attack.

Defend on the other hand simple halves the damage taken after other modifiers. Let’s say Johnny is attacked for 100 damage. BUT Johnny has 30% armor. [100 – 30 = 70 * .5 = 35 damage taken]. DEFEND DOES NOT INCREASE ARMOR!!! But other than that it’s still pretty basic.

So where do you come into this? Well you can set up a Battle Plan which is given at the same time you pick positions. In the Battle Plan you simply tell your Gladiators the general plan you want them to follow. You can be as specific or as general as you want. Both have their advantages. Some gladiators however are unruly and won’t listen to the plan, but most will.
What happens after the battle?

Well that depends entirely on if you won or not. If you won you will be granted prize money and fame. If you lost, you might win some fame, but more likely you will lose it. Both sides, however, are given the option to Revive critical condition fighters. This requires a certain amount of money [displayed by the Critical’s Name] to be paid to return them to a single health point so they may start recovering health naturally. Alternatively you can pay further amounts to heal them instantly. The churches of the gladiatorial games do excellent work, but at a fee.

After that the Turn Order is reset and the gladiators rest for a week until the start of the next games or the continuation of the league.
[[to be filled in later]]

Spoiler: League Types (click to show/hide)

Leagues are tournaments Gladiators take part in for fame and glory. Thankfully, victorious schools, as well as runners up, will earn money and fame as well as a title for their victory. There are three types of Leagues:

Round Robin: Every School will compete against every other school a single time. At the end of the Round Robin the number of wins is counted and the victor decided. If there is a tie between an equal number of schools the schools will partake in a single elimination tournament until only one remains. If there is a draw between an odd number of schools then all schools will split the prize. Various rules can apply to this sort of League.

Tourney: Every school competes in a single elimination tournament with the winner of each match facing the winner of another match until only one school remains undefeated. Various rules can apply to this sort of League.

Scramble: Similar to the Tourney this is a single elimination tournament, however after the teams are picked the two teams are randomly scrambled. This means your Fighter can be replaced for the opposing teams Paladin, or vice versa. This leads to more entertaining matches. Do not worry, you will receive your gladiator back at the end of the match regardless of outcome.

Unique Rules
Some leagues have unique rules that are posted before sign-ups. Some examples of this are:

Death Matches: Leagues that have these do not allow Gladiators to leave until their opposition is dead. This is highly exciting for the crowd and often has high rewards. Unfortunately if your gladiator falls in a Death Match you cannot revive them, and they are lost forever. These can be good for getting rid of particularly annoying opponent “Star Players” or even Gladiators that you have tired of. After all, if they win you get big money, if they lose you don’t have to pay them anymore.

Exotic: Leagues that have these do not allow certain types of units such as “Humans” or “Ferals”. This requires for a decent variety of gladiators to keep from being banned from these leagues. Another popular name for these leagues is “Racist” due to the fact that some only allow a single type of race to participate.

Tiered: Leagues that have this tag do not allow units above and/or below a certain level to participate. This is usually done to allow weaker gladiators a chance to get their bearings.

As well as many more.

[Rolepgeek]

Looks pretty cool. I'd play. You might split things up or make them more clearly distinct with italics or bold, though, for ease of reading.

[Parsely]

Looks pretty cool. I'd play. You might split things up or make them more clearly distinct with italics or bold, though, for ease of reading.

This.

[Nerjin]

To those of you who wanted to join, the Gladiator game will be going up momentarily.

[jetex1911]

Would anyone be interested in a suggestion game where your soul inhabited a weapon/piece of armor, and where you tried to entice the odd person into using you enough times to be able to possess them?

The basic idea would be that once someone picked you up & started to use you, you would use the "Souls" of those slain by you to give yourself traits that would make you either more deadly and/or useful to your owner, or more able to manipulate them into doing what you want. Over time, the sword you might inhabit would change from looking like any regular old sword to something that even the most clueless adventurer would recognize.

Eventually, once you have been used by your current owner long enough, or after you have gotten a few traits, you could try to take over them, possessing their body and eating their soul. The only requirement being that you are near them or otherwise on their person, you'd be able to do anything your owner was capable of doing from then on.

One problem you would need to deal with is constantly having different owners, either from losing your owner to illness or even age (Although you might be able to mitigate that with the correct trait...), or from them being slain by someone else meaning to gain you.

Can anyone think if anything I might have missed, or any suggestions that you would like to make?

TL;DR Would anyone be interested in the idea of an Evil Weapon/Armor Suggestion Game?

[Parsely]

Just start the game with the evil weapon being found by some unawares chap. Let souls gotten let the weapon become more powerful, and also gain more ways to entice users into grabbing it if you decide the original guy who grabbed it won't just be a main character, and stuff like that.

Yeah it'd be fun, even better if the user of the weapon is genre savvy and he and the weapon have hilarious banter as they slaughter things together.

[kj1225]

So, has anyone thought of making a forum game like The Ship?

In just thought of doing something like this from miss reading the title of another thread and I think it would be a good idea. Of course, if someone ran it they would need to be able to use Microsoft paint at least.

[Fniff]

The Ship would make a good alternative gamemode to Mafia.

[kj1225]

Yeah, that or the assassin's creed multiplayer. Both are pretty good from what I've seen/played.

[Fniff]

What's the ideal amount of planning you should do before starting a forum game like a suggestion game or RP? Obviously you shouldn't be too simple or else you'll run out of plot, but is there such a thing as too much planning?

[flabort]

Yes. Because the players will always Take the Third Option, screwing with all your hooks, and then they won't even go on the adventure you had planned. Leaving you with two binders and a novella of planning that all went to waste.

Which is why I hardly plan at all, beyond the mechanics.

[kj1225]

Also, if your plan includes having the players go along with it on pain of death don't let them get away from the death part.

[Fniff]

So, always account for player ingenuity and allow the plot to be paced with the players, and if railroading is required don't forget the threat that's meant to keep them in line.

[Fniff]

DOUBLEPOST AWAAAAY.

Setting based question. In the backstory of the setting I'm making for suggestion game I was hinting at there, a massive war between several hundred somewhat organized cells of superpowered maniacs (Before you ask why the small number, they were pretty much on a godlike scale at the point in time and most of them are meant to be sociopaths which are quite rare) and most modern Earth armies happens. The casualties on the army side are in the millions, and the civilian casualties actually managing to reduce Earth's population to two billion. I'm leaving it intentionally vague as to how the hell a war could be that absurdly horrible. However, I'm trying to work out how much the world would be cost by it in terms of cash. In a four year war that completely trashes the majority of Europe, the Americas, and some parts of Asia, reducing most first world nations to third world by the end of it, how much damage would there be?

I was thinking 157 trillion dollars. For comparison, the world GDP is 69 trillion. Is this wildly exaggerated, reasonable, or even underestimating it?