Where can I pre-order BirthRight d20 online?

[Mainboard]

Where can I pre-order the d20 BR book? Either that or where will it be available? Thanks ahead of time.

[Arjan]

You wont have to pre order BRCS D20
it will be available as a free downloadable document right here on BRnet.

estimated release will be within the first week of february, official announcement will follow.

Arjan

[Mainboard]

You guys are great. BTW I cant wait until I try the new domain rules. One question though, are war cards still used or is it a diffrent system?

[Raesene Andu]

Originally posted by Mainboard
You guys are great. BTW I cant wait until I try the new domain rules. One question though, are war cards still used or is it a diffrent system?

I don't want to pre-empt the release of the BRCS here, so all I'll say is that you can use warcards, but it is not esential.

The chapter on warfare is likely to be the one that causes most of the comment, along with the domain rules. I think the war rules, as they have been presented in the BRCS, are well written and well thought out, it remains to be seen what everyone else thinks.

Anyway, not long to wait now, the BRCS just has to go through final editing and formatting and it will be ready to release to the BR community for comment, discussion, and argument.

[Mainboard]

Hehe I hope I dont have to use the war or navel cards. I have them all but I would rather have a simplified system to use. Also I hope the domain rules are involved, I really liked domains but I wanted a better system for it.

[Raesene Andu]

Personally, I haven't used the war cards for years. They sit gathering dust atop the bookcase in my study. I think most people will agree that they war cards system was cumbersome, and results in battles that took hours.

I just ran a quick test battle using the new rules between 2 units of infantry and 1 unit of undead. Battle took just under 2 minutes (or 4 minutes if you include the time it took to look up the rules, find my dice and locate a pen and piece of paper)
Net result of the battle was 1 dead infantry, 1 damaged infantry (1 hit), 1 dead undead legion. The infantry very lucky this time.
Materials required 3 d20s (could use just 1), and 1 scrap piece of paper.

[Peter Lubke]

On Thu, 2003-01-30 at 12:50, Raesene Andu wrote:

This post was generated by the Birthright.net message forum.
You can view the entire thread at: http://www.birthright.net/read.php?TID=1233

Raesene Andu wrote:
Personally, I haven`t used the war cards for years. They sit gathering dust atop the bookcase in my study. I think most people will agree that they war cards system was cumbersome, and results in battles that took hours.

I just ran a quick test battle using the new rules between 2 units of infantry and 1 unit of undead. Battle took just under 2 minutes (or 4 minutes if you include the time it took to look up the rules, find my dice and locate a pen and piece of paper)
Net result of the battle was 1 dead infantry, 1 damaged infantry (1 hit), 1 dead undead legion. The infantry very lucky this time.
Materials required 3 d20s (could use just 1), and 1 scrap piece of paper.

It`s interesting that people prefer large battle systems that are quick
to resolve rather than taking hours, but prefer personal combat systems
so close to simulation that a general melee with 20 combatants takes an
hour or more to resolve. The actual time (game duration) of the latter
would be minutes while the former could be half a day.


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[Birthright-L]

On Thu, 30 Jan 2003, Peter Lubke wrote:
> It`s interesting that people prefer large battle systems that are quick
> to resolve rather than taking hours, but prefer personal combat systems
> so close to simulation that a general melee with 20 combatants takes an
> hour or more to resolve. The actual time (game duration) of the latter
> would be minutes while the former could be half a day.

You don`t really have the personal investment with the pretend army your
pretend character hired, as you do with the character himself. You`ve
detailed the PC and played him for a lot of hours, you want to feel like a
battle he takes place in is complex and that he has a significant effect
on the outcome. Thus the simulation. The 200 faceless guys? Eh, give
`em a broadside of d20s and let`s move on with the plot.
--
Communication is possible only between equals.
Daniel McSorley- mcsorley@cis.ohio-state.edu

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[Raesene Andu]

Originally posted by Birthright-L
You don`t really have the personal investment with the pretend army your
pretend character hired, as you do with the character himself. You`ve
detailed the PC and played him for a lot of hours, you want to feel like a
battle he takes place in is complex and that he has a significant effect
on the outcome. Thus the simulation. The 200 faceless guys? Eh, give
`em a broadside of d20s and let`s move on with the plot.

Even more so with Birthright, where your character spends more time running his domain than adventuring (in game time, not necessarily in real time). I guess there is something more personal about hand to hand combat involving you character and a few mates against a horde of enemys over mass combat involving potentially thousands of soldiers of either side.

That said, the d20 Birthright rules do allow for detailed battles if that is what you prefer. Personally I don't like wasting time on the battles, so the broadside of d20s isn't far off the mark for what my battles will look like. Basically, you can put as much effort into mass combat as you like, with minitures for each unit, a detailed table-top map of the battle site, and whatever else you think you need, or you can just jot down the locations of the units on a piece of paper like I did and roll a series of d20s until one side dies, surrenders, or wins.

The rules should also be fairly easy to pick up I think. At least I understood them fairly quickly, and that is good for me. The rules do mention war cards, but you don't need them, and can use minitures, counters, coins, a piece of paper and a pencil, etc. All you need is something to represent the unit, its stats, and its current location on the battle field. By seperating the unit's stats from the war card, the old war card system is no longer needed.

Anyway, just wait until the rules are out, then you can argue about them all you like :)

[Peter Lubke]

On Thu, 2003-01-30 at 13:48, daniel mcsorley wrote:

On Thu, 30 Jan 2003, Peter Lubke wrote:
> It`s interesting that people prefer large battle systems that are quick
> to resolve rather than taking hours, but prefer personal combat systems
> so close to simulation that a general melee with 20 combatants takes an
> hour or more to resolve. The actual time (game duration) of the latter
> would be minutes while the former could be half a day.

You don`t really have the personal investment with the pretend army your
pretend character hired, as you do with the character himself. You`ve
detailed the PC and played him for a lot of hours, you want to feel like a
battle he takes place in is complex and that he has a significant effect
on the outcome. Thus the simulation. The 200 faceless guys? Eh, give
`em a broadside of d20s and let`s move on with the plot.
--

I usually want to know the answer to the question: "Did I do the right
thing? (make a correct decision) -- should I have cut and run instead?,
maybe negotiation was a better option - combat is so unpredictable
perhaps I should have tried to bribe my way past first - am I really as
mean a motherf**ker as I thought or is this guy just better?" - I don`t
want to have a long drawn out personal melee (and BTW wait around while
all the other players are taking their long drawn out melee).

I want to know ASAP what happens so I can make the next important
decision: What to do with the vanquished, or how to deal with getting
dealt with (having lost), who to attack next, etc.

I also don`t expect that this determination will take a significantly
different amount of time simply because my character has more
experience.

Communication is possible only between equals.
Daniel McSorley- mcsorley@cis.ohio-state.edu

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