Plug and play setting element, or, what do you want to play today (part 2)?

And so, to the final part of my series on how to customize your game world in All That Remains.

The assumption behind a vanilla game of ATR is that the apocalypse happened to a world more or less like ours. The technology is familiar and radiation is more likely to give you a bad case of death than three arms and precognition.

Of course, plenty of post apocalyptic fiction takes place in radically different settings, and ATR is designed to allow you to mix and match your favourite setting elements to your satisfaction.

Thus, the final thing you must agree with your opponent, before building your forces, is what setting elements your world includes.

To me the "big three" are futuristic technology, mutations and psychic powers.

Futuristic technology itself will be scalable, with three levels representing potential future development, speculative technology and what is essentially science fantasy.

20 Minutes Into the Future - the lowest level - includes things like OIWC systems and micro drones. Technology that is still very new or not quite mature.

Speculative fiction contains technologies that are mostly in the realm of science fiction but still grounded in reality. Powered exoskeletons, robots, and sentry guns belong here.

Science fantasy contains the technologies most divorced from reality - at least currently. Powered armour, energy weapons and androids are unlocked at this level.

The future technology element also modifies the Fog of War deck, by adding cards that can "glitch out" complicated technology or send robots into fratricidal rampages. This level should also result in new faction building rules for all AI factions.

The Mutants element adds well... mutants to the mix, allowing you to modify the base stats of your troops or give them wings and natural weapons. Mounts can also be modified to create agile leaping raptors or gigantic armoured beasts. The charges of animal handlers can also be modified allowing various mutant beasties to rampage across the battlefield.

Psychic powers allow you to field various psychic characters to support your forces, or interfere with your opponent. It's as simple as that really.

These will be produced after the main rules are done, initially as separate documents, but will be eventually incorporated into the main rules. Speaking of which, I've spent a lot of time on trains with my fancy new laptop recently, and the rules are evolving quickly.

Other 'minor' setting elements I'm thinking of adding are:

• More options for very primitive factions and visionary re-inventor types
• Rules for heroes - i.e. adding unique characters to the game
• Archaeotech - rules for randomly generating future weapons, that may easily backfire on your forces.

I've got the feeling that I'm missing something important here. If you can think of a setting element I've overlooked or something you'd like to see in All That Remains, why not add a suggestion in the comments?

Hopefully the next post I make will contain some lead candy.

-- Sebastian

Ammunition, or, what do you want to play today (part 1.5)?

I've received a questions about the last post regarding ammunition which probably should have been covered there so here's a quick summary.

Availability of ammunition, or the ability to manufacture it reliably is obviously something that will shape the armies and combat doctrines of your faction. All That Remains being a post-apocalyptic game, reliable supplies of ammunition may be hard to come by.

Unless you're playing in The Walking Dead universe where everyone is apparently resupplied by the USAF on a nightly basis...

Whenever a unit which includes one or more non-primitive firearms fires it's weapons, it rolls an ammo dice, which with a roll of a one indicated that that unit has run out of ammo - for it's modern weapons.

Units can be resupplied with logistics points, which are purchased during your force selection, and are spent to resupply your troops. If you run out of logistics points, your squads will start to run out of ammunition.

It should be noted that costs for logistics points "ramp up", i.e. the first one will cost X, the next will cost 2X the next 4X and so on, so eventually buying another logistics point will become uneconomical, where that point is, is up to you.

That's all there is to it really.

I haven't put that much work into it yet, but I'm currently leaning towards not changing the cost dependent on setting level, the cost of guns themselves should be enough to incentivise or deincentives their use.

Scalable tech levels, or, what do you want to play today (part 1)?

Cards on the table, "tech level" really isn't the right phrase... but more on that later.

I really appreciate pointed war-games. What I mean by that is, wargames that have a points system to help balance game-play. Now, points systems have their detractors and they have a point, they can only go so far to balance a game and some companies (naming no names but you probably know who I'm talking about - cheap shot I know) gave up anything but the illusion of balance some time ago. I very much doubt that I'll be able to give All That Remains anything like close to perfect balance, what with all the planned features, but I am going to try my hardest.

No, the great advantage of points systems over scenario based games (such as Force on Force - and don't get me wrong I love me some scenario based games as well - check out BIG Force on Force for some epic stories) is that you can contact your mate, set a time and place, agree on a points limit and just turn up. There's no need to design scenarios (which is just another form of balancing) or plan in advance what terrain and specific figures you'll need for that scenario, it's just points limit, build a force, turn up.

Which I suppose is a rather long winded way of introducing the fact that ATR is designed to allow you to quickly tailor the "flavour" of your game world, but keep things easy to pick up and play.

Now back to the scalable tech level thing. The available technology at the time of, and after The Fall in your game of ATR is scalable, but that will be addressed, but through the plug-n-play elements.

What I was trying to express could, more accurately, be termed, "gun saturation."

There's no doubt that guns can really define a work of post-apocalyptic fiction, and as war-gamers you'll all be aware of how different games play depending on whether the setting has firearms - particularly automatic firearms - or not and, by extension, how firearms changed the historical battlefield.

There are three levels of, what, for lack of a better term, I am going to call "gun saturation" for now. Depending on what style of game you want, you and your opponent should agree on what level you are using before putting your forces together.

The default level strikes a balance between the three. The closest approximation to this level is probably Fallout 1. In the original Fallout there are plenty of firearms to go around, but melee fighters (or "builds" in the case of the player character) are clearly still a viable tactic. In this setting guns are fairly common, but it is conceivable that a faction would be able to survive and prosper with very few, or none. Primitive firearms will see use as well, as factions manufacture them to make up capability gaps. Factions that specialise in firearms will have to balance their desire for firearms - and resultant small numbers- against the possibility that a melee armed force will overrun them. This is probably the closest to what is known colloquially as "Brit-apoc".

Guns are most abundant in what I am calling the Postman (Film) level. Most soldiers will fight with an automatic weapon of some kind. Modern firearms are reduced in cost relative to other kinds of weapons, meaning that choosing primitive ranged weapons will offer worse value for your points. This style of game will play very differently to the other two, with most of the action taking place at range, with melee combat being rare, and assaults - unless meticulously executed - are likely to fail.

The third level is what I am currently calling the "Fury Road" setting. Modern weapons are so rare that they become real heirlooms. Those that are on the field will probably be the signature weapons of important warriors. This setting plays differently too. The battle will probably be decided by melee combat, with primitive weapons providing support. Forces that focus exclusively on modern weapons will probably be infeasibly small at this level, or at the best have to play a canny game against a sizeable, if more primitive army.

A fourth, unwritten level is of course, to not have firearms at all, either modern or modern and primitive. However, ATR is not being written with this in mind, and there may be better rulesets to capture this type of game - in fact, we're working on one, very much on the back burner right now though.

I hope this piques your interest. In my next post I will cover how you can customise your game world with plug-n-play setting elements, including everyone's favourite post-apunkalypse tropes.

World building, or, Apocalypse How?

So, with Xander making a start on describing the world of our display game - I must admit I hadn't given much thought to it before today - I thought I should give you an idea of how world building affects your game.

I mentioned on the About page that All That Remains is designed to allow you to set your games in any post apocalyptic setting you want, including - as Xander noted - any of the various settings found throughout the post apocalyptic genre.

The most obvious detail you'll want to decide on is how civilisation came to an end in your  world. Your choice of apocalypse will make itself felt through the board you fight on, and the Fog of War deck, a deck of cards drawn on any time one of your units rolls a 1 on a Quality Check.

Depopulation bombs are one type of apocalypse you can consider. For whatever reason the population of earth has been reduced, suddenly and drastically. Pandemics, environmental collapse or a global economic meltdown are all good examples of this kind of apocalypse.

This is the "vanilla" setting for ATR, and doesn't affect the board or add new cards to the FoW deck.

Nuclear war - the big one. This setting adds cards to the FoW deck that can render terrain pieces suddenly unusable as pockets of fallout are found lingering to poison the unwary. New items such as Geiger counters and HAZMAT gear can be bought to protect your troops from its effects. Background radiation fluctuates wildly, potentially blocking radio messages to your support assets and troops.

A super volcano or small asteroid may have hit your world, plunging it into a deep winter. Blizzards may spring up without warning slowing, but concealing troop movements, or disappear just as suddenly, leaving your units exposed.

And lastly, everybody's favourite, Zombies! Now you might think that this would result in a very different game. And you'd be right. And wrong. Remember how in The Walking Dead zombies sort of became a secondary threat? It's a bit like that. The zombies of this world have started to decay and recede as survivors bind together to create new societies. And of course forgetting that they were almost wiped out, begin the time honoured tradition of competing with each other for dominance.

In a Zombie apocalypse game you can use your silence as a weapon, or open up to quickly achieve your objectives. Because zombies without a unit in sight will head towards the noisiest unit, and the noisier both sides are combined, the more zombies are attracted to the fight... Best bring those crossbows, just in case... The FoW deck also becomes zombie themed, with zombies suddenly lurking in the cellars of houses you thought were safe, and infected among your own men, because of course, "it's just a scratch." Just remember that the focus is force on force violence, the zombies are just an inconvenience. A hungry, hungry inconvenience...

These are the three I've put thought into so far, I'll probably post a thread over at the Post-Apocalyptic Wargames Forum (check 'em out) to brainstorm more.

 Of course there's nothing to stop you mixing these settings. Mix nuclear and deep freeze and you've got a Nuclear Winter, for instance.

And if you combine zombies and deep winter you get...

Ha! No but seriously, G.R.R.M's lawyers would metaphorically eat us. Then G.R.R.M. would actually eat us...

More exotic settings can also be handled, albeit in different ways. Machine apocalypses can be handled with the upcoming future tech rules, with all machine factions. Alien invasions can be easily represented, either by treating the invaders as basically human with advanced technology, or by using the upcoming mutant rules to flesh out truly alien species.

In both these cases, it should be remembered that ATR is designed to be a post apocalyptic ruleset. Thus machine factions and alien armies are better dealt with in this light. For machine factions, perhaps view as just yet another powerful group in the wasteland, like the various robotic factions of Darwin's World. For aliens, consider a scenario more like Armageddon Empires. Earth there was fairly ancillary, merely a planet caught in the crossfire of an interplanetary war. Once the front moved on, the stragglers and deserters of the two alien empires were no more impressive than the angry humans set on reclaiming their planet.

Hopefully, this has given you an overview on how you will be able to inform your games of All That Remains through your world building. In my next post I'll talk about the variable technology level and the plug and play elements.

-- Sebastian