Only War help

[zeke]

Evening everyone. So as the title says, my friends and I decided to try and play Only War.

Now, my group consists of one of my good friends who plays warhammer, and who I have played D&D with before (however, we played twice, no more), and 2 other guys who have never played warhammer but expressed interest in an RPG. So it's safe to say that I have almost next to no experience with RPG's.

Now, my good friend and I sat down with the rulebook tonight and proceeded to struggle through it. Some parts, we got. Others, not so much. Could someone explain,

1) How movement works?

2) The actions. Is there a pre-set number of actions per turn, or do you get only one.

3) And just a basic breakdown of combat, so simple a caveman could get.

Also, I volunteered to be GM for our sessions in the future, so any tips or tricks on how to make a good GM would also be greatly appreciated.

Thanks one and all,
Zeke

[emptyhat]

I hadn't played any RPs like this before Mel's beta test campaign and I found it difficult taking in some of the aspects. It gets better after a while though, just go easy on your friends at first and prioritise telling a good story and having fun. Then creep in more of the mechanics.

1) Movement is based on common sense in narrative time and in structured time you can move or charge as actions which is summed up in one line on page 242. There is more on movement on page 33 which gives you some guidelines but you can use common sense when out of combat.

2) Actions only really matter when you want to have 'structured time'. For the bits that the GM wants to run as a story 'narrative time' than you use common sense. That means that if your players are still learning the rules and getting the hang of things you can go easy at first and mostly use narrative. Then ease them into the structured time stuff with a small encounter.

Actions are on 240 and it explains that when the GM switches you onto structured time that you can take a full action or a couple of half actions. With maybe a sprinkling of free actions and a reaction in there but the main thing is that one whole or up to two halves. Some of the halves need traits to work and you can't use two halves of the same subtype.

The table on 243 is really useful and reading the whole of chapter 8 a couple of times helps (I printed out a copy of that chapter).

3) For structured combat start with having them roll initiative, and roll for the enemies (lump any groups together like ork boyz under one number but seperate anyone important like a nob or maybe the special weapon),

Then the character with the highest initiative picks out an action or a couple of half actions and follows those. So if your weapon specialist aims as a full action that is all s/he does that turn (but gets the bonus next turn). But if the weapon specialist aims as a half action and makes a standard attack with a lasgun then work out the bonuses to hit, +10 for the standard attack, +10 for aiming, +/- whatever for using a lasgun of whatever quality, +/- whatever for the difficulty (is it a shot that would be hard to miss? Give a bonus. Is it a shadow dancing harlequin in the rain at extreme range? Apply a penalty.) Then roll to hit and if it hits roll damage.

Then it is the next guy's turn.

[RedsandRoyals]

I'll dive in here to supplement Empty's answers, since I have the core book open on my lap.

1) There are two broad types of movement. The first is narrative, which Empty covered. The second is "combat" movement, which is basically used any time you aren't using narrative movement. There are three different types of combat movement; walk (half action), walk (full action), charge, and run. Walking as a half action moves the character a distance equal to their Ag bonus in meters. So, if a character with an agility of 43 walked as a half action, they would move 4 meters. If they walk as a full action, that's double their ag bonus, so it would be 8m. Charging is 3x ag bonus, so they would go 12m, and running 6x Ag bonus, so it would be 24. Jumping and leaping are full actions, and again rely on the specific ag bonus (although it's usually easier for a GM to just say "Yeah you can probably reach it").

2) Empty knocked this one out of the park, nothing to add here.

3) Some quick additions
- Initiative is determined by each character rolling 1d10 and adding their Ag bonus for their total score. There are a handful of talents that bolster this though, either adding bonuses, doubling the ag score, or what have you. Luckily, it's the player's job to remember they have that talent, not yours.

- There are 31 different actions a player can take during combat, but most often it will be a standard attack, which is a half action use of a melee or ranged weapon, with a +10 bonus, like Empty mentioned. If you want a full reference list, I can scan my GM screen for you (or since you're local, leave it at Victory Comics in Falls Church for you to pick up and use as long as you want).

As for GM tips, skim this thread for a few general pointers. Any idea what type of campaign you'll be running?

Reds

[Adkenpachi]

Also let us know exactly how it goes. Pros and cons, i want to give this a go with three friends who have NO rpg experience and ive only played d&d once i would likely be gm even though i dont want to :/

[zeke]

Thanks for the quick responses empty and reds! I'll give it a go in a few days and see how it goes. Definitely going to be a huge learning curve for all of us.

[zeke]

So, a few more questions:

1) When referring to regiments and support specialists, do the the specialists get the same perks and weaknesses as the regiment, or since they are not considered to be part of the regiment they do not get any.

2) When it comes to finding items, does the GM just decide, or is there like a set limit on what he can/can't do?

Thanks again.

[RedsandRoyals]

Mar 15, 2013 23:48:06 GMT -5 zeke said:

So, a few more questions:

1) When referring to regiments and support specialists, do the the specialists get the same perks and weaknesses as the regiment, or since they are not considered to be part of the regiment they do not get any.

2) When it comes to finding items, does the GM just decide, or is there like a set limit on what he can/can't do?

Thanks again.

1) The support specialists should probably get the regimental perks, unless you want to specifically go through and make regimental packages for each specialist. Otherwise, it's sort of unfair to the specialist classes, which are assumed to be part of the regiment anyway if they're all serving in the same unit.

2) The hard limit on what can and cannot be found is usually a mix of what the GM determines to be available (no, the party can't requisition power armor) and the difficulty of the acquisition test. Depending on the squad's logistic rating, where they're deployed, etc, some items may be so difficult to acquire they're essentially impossible to get. At the other extreme, the GM should probably limit how many of a certain common item someone can get, otherwise you'll invariably have one party member requisition a thousand sets of nose plugs. The easiest way to do it is to ask them what they want to find, figure out for yourself if they're likely to even be able to get their hands on it, ten have them make the acquisition test to try to get it. If you're talking about looting corpses, then yeah, it's sort of up to the GM what is and isn't there.

Reds