Bay 12 Games Forum

Standard RTD rules, 1 is a critical fail and 6 is a critical success. Chunky salsa rule is in effect.

don't get too attached to your characters if the thread title wasn't enough
Character name: Your character's name. With how many cultures there are after the dawn of spaceflight, there will inevitably be some unusual ones.
Background: Where did your character come from? What were they before they volunteered/conscripted/drafted/press ganged/bribed/coerced/etc?
Equipment: (by default this is the Trooper kit)
Killcount: Self explanatory. You can keep track of enemy types killed if you would like.
Credits: Currency. Passed down to your next of kin if you die. Primarily used to purchase items during character creation and bribing other players into being the pointman.
Past Characters: A list of every character you have played in this game that died, their individual killcounts, and causes of death.
Status: Any injuries you may be suffering and other health conditions.
You will also need to choose a starting kit if you'd prefer not going in unarmed. More kits will unlock as the game goes on.
Due to the vast size of the territory humanity recruits their forces from, trying to standardize everything to an individual component will be more trouble than it's worth, resulting in hundreds of patterns of weapons in active use. Mostly the higher quality ones. If you try to request some special snowflake custom-built weapon with hard to produce components and extremely specific ammo, you will be told to go fuck yourself by your commanding officer.
Rifleman:
Cost: FREE
Assault Rifle
6 rifle magazines
2 fragmentation grenades
2 flashbangs
2 smoke grenades
Helmet
Ballistic vest
Knife

Scout:
Cost: FREE
Submachine gun
4 SMG magazines
2 fragmentation grenades
2 smoke grenades
Binoculars
Helmet
Light ballistic vest
Knife

Designated Marksman:
Cost: 3c
DMR
Pistol
4 rifle magazines
2 pistol magazines
Scope
Helmet
Ballistic vest
Knife

Grenadier:
Cost: 5c
Assault Rifle w/ Underbarrel Grenade Launcher
4 launcher grenades (explosive)
2 launcher grenades (smoke)
2 launcher grenades (flashbang)
6 rifle magazines
Helmet
Ballistic vest
Blast Padding
Knife

Character name: Hobo Bob
Background: He was homeless and figured being in the army was better than starving in the street.
Equipment:
 Assault Rifle (25/30)
 6 rifle magazines
 2 fragmentation grenades
 2 flashbangs
 2 smoke grenades
 Helmet
 Ballistic vest
 Knife
 Spacesuit
Killcount: 0
Credits: 0
Past Characters: None
Status: Right arm injured

Character name: [REDACTED]
Background: [REDACTED]
Equipment:
 Assault Rifle (26/30)
 6 rifle magazines
 2 fragmentation grenades
 2 flashbangs
 2 smoke grenades
 Helmet
 Ballistic vest
 Knife
 Spacesuit
Killcount: 0
Credits: 0
Past Characters: None

Every time a new article is rolled for a player (or random event if I feel bored), a random wiki from the below list will be chosen, and then a random page from the wiki chosen will be used. If it's not something that would go under the veto list, it'll be chosen, and I'll write up a summary of what it gives. This can vary based on article contents - if it describes a character, then it'll give any abilities or items associated with it, and if it was the first one selected, it'll make the player's directly controlled character be the character chose, and an ally otherwise, while if it describes an item, weapon, or vehicle, then it'll give you that. For obvious reasons, if something would be way stronger or weaker than slightly better versions of everyday stuff, I'll nerf/buff it accordingly.

At the start of each round, I'll roll until I find something that would work well as an arena (nothing that's way too small or way too big, think a large house at the smallest and a college campus at the largest) after rolling everyone's characters, and if I don't find the arena interesting enough even after reading through the entire article chosen, I might either A: throw in some random pages to make things interesting, or B: Reroll the arena chosen and find a new one.

If you win the last round, you can choose any wiki on this list to be guaranteed to be chosen from for a single article, and you can elect to save it for a later round if you don't want to use it now. If you submit a wiki to the list (that gets approved) I add it to the list and you gain the ability to choose that particular wiki once for a guaranteed article, similar to winners, but fixed to a single wiki. That's right, your reward for submitting wikis for this game is the ability to have slightly more of a choice over what you get.

Everyone gets 5 starting articles and cannot go over that - but you can get 1 extra random article every time you kill a player, or otherwise make them unable to return to the arena by the battle's end (but only once per unique player in respawning-enabled gamemodes).
(current) Wiki list:
1: Wikipedia (Guaranteed 2x unless specifically replaced, I will switch to a random other wiki if I get 10 consecutive vetos in a row on this wiki)
2: TV Tropes
3: Villains Wiki
4: Heroes Wiki
5: SCP Foundation
6: TYPE-MOON Wiki
7: Fate/Grand Order Wiki
8: Mario Wiki
9: Enter the Gungeon Wiki
10: Noita Wiki
11: Superpower Wiki
12: Warthunder Wiki
13: Hearthstone Wiki
14: Ludosity Wiki
15: TABS Wiki
16: Jojo Wiki
17: DanD wiki
18: Roguebasin
19: Disgaea Wiki
20: The Witcher Wiki
21: Monster Hunter Wiki
22: Risk of Rain wiki
23: Call of Duty wiki
24: Mass Effect wiki
25: Starcraft Wiki
26: Henry Stickmin Wiki
27: Sonic News Network
28: Spore Wiki
29: Borderlands Wiki
30: Subnautica wiki
31: Aselia wiki

Submitting more wikis guarantees more variety in what you can get, and make the game more fun, chaotic, and unpredictable.

Veto list: (note: this can apply to entire wiki submissions if these veto-worthy qualities define the entire wiki)
-Material that is primarily sexual, offensive with minimal redeeming qualities, or otherwise just asking to get this thread deleted
-Anything that wouldn't have any gameplay relevance (like athletes you've never heard of, fluff that doesn't have anything useful for Wiki Wars, etc)
-Stuff that is so useless/powerful in the source material that no nerfing/buffing can make it balanced without throwing out any resemblance to the source material
-Duplicate articles when it wouldn't be beneficial to the person rolling the articles
-Wrong type of content (such as non-locations being rolled for the Arena's article)
-Any other reason if needed

Everyone is capable of doing as many things as they reasonably can within a (roughly) 1 minute time period, although I might make turns represent more time in case everyone's far enough away from the action until they're close enough to start killing eachother like civilized Wiki Warriors, and less time if the action's quick enough to warrant shorter turns for more specific actions. This is more or less a guideline, but if I feel like you're doing way too much within one turn to be considered anything but a powergamer, I reserve the right to call bullshit.

To save time, I won't roll dice for actions without any degree of uncertainty. If it does, then I'll roll dice as needed. I will also assign positive or negative modifiers to rolls if needed - but a result cannot go below 1.

Combat is resolved using D10s (which represent skill) which is reduced by the target's D10 (which represents the ability to avoid the attack), and if the attacker's D10 is higher, the attack connects, and then the weapon's attack die (depends on weapon, unarmed is normally 1D4) which is rolled against the target's defense die (which is based on what form of protection is being worn, which is by default a d4, and it can be raised or lowered depending on how effective the weapon is against the target's defensive capabilities, like armor). If the attack roll is higher than the defender's defense roll, the attack successfully harms the target, with the severity being based on weapon power, and how the defender got hit. Chunky salsa will be used for resolving health. To save lots of time when using really fast firing weapons, each "attack" represents a burst of 5-10 (depending on weapon) shots.

For clarification, skill bonuses (flat or dice) in player sheets are added after the default 1d10.

NPC Allies brought into battle (either by recruiting Normal People (and their variants), from articles, or other sources) will act like you can expect them to based on who they are, and will usually follow orders and almost always have a sense of self preservation. They will effectively act like normal players when it comes to actions, and may or may not come with their own equipment. You can give them equipment or take equipment from them as needed.

A weapon can take ammo from another weapon as long as it would make sense for the two weapons to be able to use the same ammo - most shotguns take 12 gauge shotgun shells, a lot of modern military service rifles take 5.56x45mm rounds, etc. Magazine/clip fed weapons typically have different magazine designs and aren't always as interchangable. Common sense should be used.

Most arenas aren't empty. Some of them have normal inhabitants, with varying opinions of the interdimensional gladiatoral arena fighters that just somehow appeared in the surrounding area. Depending on the specific Normal Person in question, they may be a patrolling soldier/guard, an ordinary civilian, a shopkeeper, etc. Their reactions to you might vary depending on your character - which can have an impact on whether or not they might join your cause or shoot you. They generally aren't tracked beyond a general location if they're not relevant to any particular chaos.

Besides just Normal People, there's also Abnormal people, which are, as their name suggests, aren't normal. One example of them appearing is when you'll be fighting a battle in some urban area, mowing down stray Normal People as usual, and then suddenly some Abnormal Person will do something totally unexpected, like blow up a bridge, mow down SpaceMen in his monster truck, or install MkIII Lasers all over his house. They're effectively Normal People which typically have some kind of weapon and are willing to use it to accomplish whatever odd objective they feel like.

On the other hand, Belligerent people are the people who live and work where the arena takes place in, and have taken up arms to protect their community. Whether they're soldiers at a military base, policemen in a city, or just the kingdom's guards, they're hostile to anyone trying to cause chaos and negatively affect the lives of the area's Normal People, and friendly to everyone else. I wouldn't see too much reason in angering them other than to loot their equipment or for shits and giggles. Unlike Abnormal people, their objectives generally involve protecting their town/base/etc from yet another interdimensional incursion, rather than causing more chaos.

Regardless of the type of normal person, you can always attempt to recruit them, if successful, they'll become an ally and fight under your command, with whatever they had before joining you. Perfect for those who feel like building their personal army to mass dislike youtube videos uploaded by their enemies.

Land Wars is a forum grand strategy game notable for 3 major features:
1: Turns are day by day, with each person updating their own sheets daily (a day typically starts and ends at midnight in the host's timezone, but people are bound to fudge it for shits and giggles)
2: People are required to create their own kingdoms and all their troops, projects, maps, etc - making the game way more fun if you're even remotely creative
3: You get to decide the strategy your troops take into battle - and everything you include in the battle report, like troops committed, supplies used, tactics, etc. are used to determine who wins the battle, and how many troops on each side die.

Because it's fun, and I don't have much to do anyways

The game will start 2 weeks after we get 4 starting players, so make sure to invite your friends if you want this to start anytime soon. Land Wars isn't fun with only 2-3 people anyways.

The game will end when everyone either A: loses interest, or B: the entire map is conquered by one player (or a few allied players working together).

The game will take place on a map made up of a mix of player-made tiles and ones I make that are attempts to somewhat smoothly blend together playermade tiles - since getting the entirety of the playerbase to agree on an artstyle and color palette for basic stuff like grass/sand/mountain colors will never happen. The scale for the map is roughly 50 pixels per mile, and a player's starting territory is a 500x500 square. You get to make the entirety of your map, provided:

1: The scale is roughly equivalent to 50 pixels per mile (try to keep it like this but I can understand some fudging)
2: The map you submit is a 500x500 image.
3: The map allows me to easily see where all the major towns and cities are (specifically your kingdom's capital should be easily discernable), it's okay to put text on your map noting various locations as long as you're not doing it to halfass things.

The quality can be anything from MS paint scribbling to something that belongs in an art museum, but if I can't tell where any gameplay-relevant places are, then it won't be accepted. Also, maps are from a top down point of view. You're allowed to make sub-maps (or maps of stuff within your territory that would be too small to display on the main maps, such as major building floorplans, city layouts, underground stuff, etc) and include them in your sheet, but the sub-maps will not be included in the main combined map that will come out when the game starts.

If you don't feel like making a map yourself for whatever reason, you can use an existing one, as long as it's a 500x500 square image with a scale of roughly 50 pixels per mile.

I will be doing most of the GM side of stuff - writing battles, answering questions, making sure no one's making intentionally overpowered stuff, and keeping the game running smoothly, while throwing in occasional events if I feel like things aren't as interesting as they could be.

On the other hand, you, the player, will be one of many kingdom leaders ingame, and you will be tasked with leading it and overseeing its design, from the surrounding 100 square miles that you control at the start of the game, to your kingdom's military, and what projects it undertakes. A more detailed summary of the kingdom creation process is in the How spoiler.

This is arguably the longest section in the game's rulebook.

First, you have to decide on basic things that determine the identity of your kingdom - what will it be called, what its theme is, and your starting focus.

The name of your kingdom (or queendom, or hivemind, or republic, or empire, or whatever you want it to be, but I'm referring to all player factions as kingdoms for consistency) is self explanatory. The theme is also self explanatory, although do keep in mind that the starting tech level is around the 1600s, and magic is widespread but not usable in extreme quantities - so not Avatar or Star Wars. Remember, if I have proof beyond a reasonable doubt that you're powergaming, you might want to tone it down a bit.

Your kingdom's focus determines what it's better at compared to most of the competition. Pick one.
Force - 100 extra troops recruited per day: Whether due to a martial culture, a surplus of warm bodies, or the will to flood enemy defenses with mooks, your kingdom has above average recruitment rates for its military.
Industry - All projects take 2/3 the amount of time to finish, rounded down: Some kingdoms focus more on researching new technologies, trying new things, and doing ambitious projects. Your kingdom is one of those kingdoms.
Legacy - 1000 extra starting troops and 15 project points available at game start, but no long term bonus: Unlike the younger kingdoms, your kingdom has been around for considerably longer and has had more time to build up its forces and technology than others. However, it doesn't have that same spark the newer kingdoms have.

You'll also need a 500x500 map of your kingdom - see the Where spoiler for all your cartography needs.

Now on to the juicy stuff.

Troops
You can have the coolest empire in the world, but that means nothing if you don't have the soldiers to back up claims that your empire is truly the best. At the start of your game, you may have up to 4 troop types (5 for Legacy focus kingdoms) - which are up to your own design. You can assign individual costs to them - 1 recruitment cost is the baseline. Vehicles like boats/ships, portable siege artillery, etc. have a recruitment cost equal to the amount of people needed to crew them at full efficiency. An elite soldier would cost 3-5x the amount an ordinary rank and file mook would cost, and a swarm of weak cannon fodder would get 3-4 per recruitment cost. Use your best judgement for pricing and what your troop's capabilities are. A troop type specialized in something is better at its specialty than a generalist troop type of the same cost.

Just remember, if you're concerned about whether or not something is balanced, let me know in PMs and I'll give you my thoughts on it.

You can recruit 200 troops per day, and an additional 100 per additional tile fully controlled bt you. If you have 3 additional tiles, you can recruit 500 troops per day. This stacks with the Force focus - 3 additional territories with the Force focus allows for 600 troops recruited per day.

Heroes
Every self respecting fictional army has at least one badass amongst its ranks that leads its men into battle headfirst while leading by example. Those are Heroes, powerful units that require a 5 day project to recruit - but in some rare cases where I decide you've earned one - whether due to an ordinary rank and file soldier repeatedly kicking enough ass to qualify as a hero, to special events, or if I feel generous, you'll get an extra hero free of cost.

As for a rough baseline of a hero, they're as powerful as a 100 cost troop when unsupported, but when supported by at least a small army, they can be unstoppable if used correctly. Despite being really powerful, they are not invincible, and are bound to suffer some form of injury that makes them unable to return to the battlefield for a day or two - or worse. Don't be afraid to use them, but also know their limits.

Projects
Projects represent the technological research of your kingdom, as well as any noteworthy construction endeavors. Things like building new fortresses, researching new technology, training new types of troops, recruiting heroes, and more. You can spend more or less project points than the baseline, but this will also affect the reults - spend 10 project points teaching your troops how to fight on boats, and you'll have the greatest navy in Land Wars history. Spend 1 project point on a fort, and it's likely going to be noticably easier for the attackers to take over than it is for the defenders to protect.

Baseline costs:
Train a new type of troop: 2
Create a new strategic resource: 3
Recruit a new hero: 5
Create a new artifact: 5
Build a new fort: 4
Train your troops to do something (fight stealthily, use bombs, etc): 3 (this cost doesn't scale with army size)
Develop new technology: Cost depends on complexity and how far it is from your kingdom's current knowledge
Mass produce a strategic resource: 2 (automatically done for free if you obtain the blueprints by any mean)

Supplies
Sooner or later, you're going to realize that perhaps it's a good idea to have some unique resources or artifacts that only your kingdom has. They fall into two types:

Strategic Resources are the first type of supply, and take the form of a unique substance, material, mechanism, etc. that no other kingdom has access to without relying on theft or trade. Magical healing liquid, mythril, powerful focusing crystals, etc. fall under Strategic Resources. You automatically start with them mass produced, but you have to do a project to mass produce them if you obtain them after the start of the game.

Artifacts are single relics/weapons/etc. that are unique and way more powerful than their mundane counterparts. They cannot be mass produced, but they can be given to someone (preferably a hero that can make the most use out of it) for maximum power. You can start with them, but creating them yourself will take a while - on par with the cost of creating a hero. You can also recieve them by securing enemy artifacts during battle or through theft, and through events.

WAR
Sooner or later, you'll end up having a reason to raid neighboring kingdoms, such as resources, keeping their power in check, or because they jaywalked in your territory leading to you starting a genocide crusade against them. Regardless of the reason for the battle, there's mechanics for them - this isn't a roll to dodge, the only factors are environment, strategy, troops committed, and supplies commited. An attack template is at the bottom of this post.

Remember, if it's not in the attack spoiler, I won't consider it. Whether or not your kingdom has access to poison arrows is irrelevant if you don't specify that your troops are using them. In addition, if two or more players are working together, then they must use the same strategy.

There are 3 types of attacks:

Invasions: Taking place on another empire's tile, invasions involve the attacking side stating where they're attacking and posting their attack information in the thread. The defending side also posts their strategy in the thread, but to prevent metagaming, defenders are not allowed to make defense strategies that rely on non-obvious information.

Stealth attacks: There are situations where going in guns blazing is better than doing it sneakily, and then there are these. Stealth attacks are different than normal invasions for various reasons. The first one is that the attacking player simply states how many troops he sends to the tile he attacks, and PMs me the details. The defending player is then told his territory is under attack, and is asked to give as much relevant info as possible - building/city layouts, patrol patterns, important devices, etc.

If everything of value - important leaders, artifacts, strategic resources, etc. is locked inside a bullshittium bunker, I reserve the right to call bullshit and use my best judgement.

Duels: A less common type of battle, two or more sides fight on neutral ground for an agreed upon reason. Everyone involved lists their troops committed and where the battle takes place (if applicable), and submit their strategies to me.

Diplomacy:
There are no actual mechanics for diplomacy in theory (in practice, people will generally hate you if you break a non aggression pact or alliance suddenly), but if you're going to trade, please do it in the thread so I know why the dwarves suddenly started using elven longbows.
You can trade practically everything - strategic resources, blueprints, technology, troops, artifacts, etc. Just be aware of potential thieves - a trade convoy can travel up to 2 tiles away from their position at the start of the day, and can be intercepted if not protected well.

Some other useful info for battles:
-No plan survives first contact. It's a good idea to have a backup plan or two in case things don't go as planned.
-No editing strategies after you submit them. An exception can be granted if you ended up forgetting something important and obvious.
-Any enemy troops you manage to take alive will be captured and available for interrogation - both me and the player the troop originally belong to get to decide what information will be revealed. As a general rule of thumb, your average cannon fodder won't know too much about their weapons and machinery compared to a high ranking specialist.
-In the event that someone makes their territory near impossible to attack without taking massive casualties from environmental factors alone, I'll just throw in some hand waves and give raiding parties koincidentally stashed gas masks/diving gear/jetpacks/etc.
-If you find yourself in a fair fight, your tactics suck.
-You can only take territory in invasions. If you really feel the need to conquer via a stealth attack, then do something that will soften up the defenders before the main invasion force arrives.

General information and rules that don't fit anywhere else:
-No mass teleportation.
-No spies.
-No making kingdoms that are likely to get this thread deleted.
-Be creative. You don't need the standard melee/ranged/cavalry trio, be creative and use what you want.
-Activity is expected. If you can't make daily updates, at least stay in contact with the group to the best of your ability, and update whenever you can. If you miss a day, then just have your update spoiler cover multiple days. For those who shall rename nameless and just suddenly disappear from the game, your troops and leadership will die koincidentally and everything that remains of your kingdom (structures, supplies, troop training information, etc.) will be up for grabs and can be obtained by annexing your territory after a 5 day project that can't be double timed.
-Upon completely conquering a kingdom, you get access to all the information they had access to - troop training procedures, technology, supplies, etc. after a 5 day annexation project which cannot be double timed.
-Claiming unowned territory requires it to be free of any hostile forces and a 2 day project to claim it - you can't double time it and the timer will reset if any hostile forces enter the area for more than a turn.
-No metagaming, such as kingdom A doing project X, with kingdom B doing strategy Y which is meant to counter project X, despite kingdom B having no IC way of knowing about project X.

Only rules are: standard D6 rolls, and please escalate the chaos and mayhem wherever possible; ignore this rule and I give you shit rolls. If there's somehow a turn without anyone getting injured as a result of player actions, I will lock the RTD, rename it to something hiding its actual glory, and then tell toady to eradicate all traces of this thread.