I've been trying to keep myself from succumbing to the temptation to start new projects (a fantasy pirate one and a post apocalyptic Britain one involving mythical beings!) by pondering the possibility of adding a new level to games of Rogue Trader.
The general gist of the idea is to do away with the current turn in the game as theres nothing more boring than having to sit and wait on your opponent moving and shooting all his stuff (sometimes killing off your force!) before you get to do anything in return. What if each unit, or in the case of my small skirmish games, individual were represented by a card with their image, stats and weapons on it.
Both players could then shuffle the deck and activate their models in the order they were drawn from the deck which would add in a level of randomness that could liven up games considerably. The only downside is the lack of representation of troops training. For example its far more likely for an Imperial Space Marine to react to a situation than a lowly PDF trooper. Perhaps this could be overcome by using a simplified card system which simply has an image of the forces insignia and allows the player to activate any single model.
Thinking about it, this could actually make for an interesting game as you could choose which side has more motivation/training and give them more cards than the other to represent this. Similarly the deck could change from turn to turn, say a group of desperate rebels ambushed a squad of Space Marines for example. In the first turn or two, the rebels would have the advantage but the superior training and reflexes of the marines would soon compensate and by turn 3 or 4, they would have more of an advantage and it would encourage the rebel player to push his luck early in hopes of using this advantage.
Similarly, players could add a few random events cards to the deck, be it weapons jams, disturbing a nearby Cudbear or even weather effects. Imagine the scenario above where the rebel player has sprung an ambush on the marines but the marine draws a weapon jam card and plays it on the rebels heavy weapon that was lining up to wipe out the squad. I just feel it adds an extra level of interest into the game that could be quite interesting and am going to spend a little time mocking up some rough ideas and see how it turns out.
Imagine playing a haywire card on Mr Snuggles which gives the opposing player control of him for his next activation!
Has anyone else had a bash at adding extra elements to Rogue Trader and how did it work as I would be most interested to hear what you did and why!
I recently picked up a copy of Freebooters Fate, a pirate game which has a really interesting, dice free mechanic where in order to hit an opponent, both sides draws a number of cards representing a body part (they both choose which body part they are attacking or defending) and if the attacker succeeds, they cause damage to the limb or whatever which influences the defending players stats afterwards. Its a really great idea and could easily be used in an RPG light version of Rogue Trader and would also be ideal for solo play with the gamer picking cards at random.
Anyhoo! Enough of my rambling! I'm off to get the flat tidied in preparation for guests so I may not get too many posts this week coming but fingers crossed, I will get some painting time during my hols!
All the best!
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