TFT: Battle - Playtesters Sought
 

I have been developing an expansion for TFT called Battle which is a set of rules for conducting large-scale battles within the game. Steve is interested in possibly adding it to TFT and we need to playtest the system to see if it's workable (and fun).

If you are interested in playtesting the game and have TFT players to play it with, please contact me here via Private Message. I'll need the following info in order to get you set up as a playtester:

1) Your real name
2) A valid email address (for sending you the game)
3) Your Discord handle (to add you to the private playtesters channel)

If you don't have a Discord account and/or aren't a member of the TFT Discord server, it's highly recommended that you join. This will be the place for discussing Battle with me and the other testers. For obvious reasons details about it won't be discussed here on the forums while it is still in the development stage. You don't have to join Discord and can email me your feedback directly, but you'll miss out on the group discussion.

Depending on the number of responses I may need to limit the size of the testing pool, in which case I'll be preferring testers who have an established presence here on the forum.

Thanks for your interest!

Re: TFT: Battle - Playtesters Sought
 

When providing your Discord handle, don't forget to include the four-digit Discord Hash suffix. Discord handle is in this format: @Name#9999, with 9999 being an example of the four-digit suffix auto-assigned by Discord. Mine is 7778.

Re: TFT: Battle - Playtesters Sought
 

Having a problem finding how to send you a messagehere

My info
Jeff Hall
zodeseeker3k@yahoo.com
Discord: Zodeseeker 9921

Re: TFT: Battle - Playtesters Sought
 

New to this forum. How do I send you a pm? The pm link you put in doesn’t work.

Re: TFT: Battle - Playtesters Sought
 

Just a quick note about how to send PMs:

Click the user's name in the post. That should give you a dropdown menu. One of the choices there is "Send a private message to Shadekeep" (or whoever). That's the one you want.

Thanks!

Re: TFT: Battle - Playtesters Sought
 

Private Message isn’t appearing in the pull-down menu. Sorry for the consternation.

Re: TFT: Battle - Playtesters Sought
 

For new users it may not appear until you've been on the forums for a while or have a certain number of posts. Some forums do this to restrict people from creating spam accounts or the like.

Re: TFT: Battle - Playtesters Sought
 

Oh, and just to be clear up front, playtesting is totally unpaid and uncompensated. Though I will do my darnedest to make sure playtesters are acknowledged in the game if it get published.

Re: TFT: Battle - Playtesters Sought
 

New users to these forums have restricted permissions to foil profile/PM spammers. These restrictions are automatically lifted after you reach a threshold level which makes us pretty sure you're a real user, not a spammer.

Edited to add: This is a good reason not to rely solely on PMs for this sort of thing, BTW. Shadekeep, do you have an alternate contact method for the new posters?

Re: TFT: Battle - Playtesters Sought
 

Sounds great! I'll definitely write to you with the info you need for my participation.

Will your 'game within a game' be resolved on a hex map, like Melee?

Will it occur at the same or larger scale (i.e., compared to Melee)?

Re: TFT: Battle - Playtesters Sought
 

Hi Shad. PM sent.

Re: TFT: Battle - Playtesters Sought
 

If you can't send a PM to Shadekeep here, you can join the TFT Discord server (the link is below), and send the PM to either Shadekeep, or, if you can't, Tollenkar. A channel is opening up on Discord for playtesting, so if you join, you're ahead of the game.

Re: TFT: Battle - Playtesters Sought
 

Yes, a number of them have contacted me directly on the Discord, so it looks like folks who are interested are finding a way. Thanks, Andrew!

Re: TFT: Battle - Playtesters Sought
 

Yes, it's on a hex map. The rules are written to utilise TFT's "village map" scale, but there are guidelines for taking it up or down to other scales.

Thanks to comments on the Discord, I just added a quick section on taking it down to Melee scale level, where each unit represents an individual. This is in case you want huge Lord Of The Rings dungeon brawls that don't take forever to play out.

Re: TFT: Battle - Playtesters Sought
 

That is great; I think it is important that a system like this 'work', in a self-similar fashion, at both individual scales and at 1:5, 1:10, etc. scales. I.e., ideally, it would fill the roles of both a fast-play skirmish table top game (1:1) and as TFT's equivalent of Squad Leader.

By the way, if you are still mulling over design elements, the house rules I drew up on this topic are heavily inspired by the Panzer Grenadier system (Avalanche Press), which has an outstanding system for initiative, command and control. It has a very creative solution to the challenges that arise in hex and chit battle games where you have each side do a ton of things all at once.

Another useful (and more accessible) thing to consider is to look at Chainmail and think about the way its core mass combat system would work if you used it for both the intended 1:20 and for 1:1 scale (or things in between). I've done this for many years (I even distributed a fantasy 'heart breaker' game, called Platemail, that lays out how it works), and it is surprisingly easy and effective.

Re: TFT: Battle - Playtesters Sought
 

I'm very much hoping that playtesting will bring exactly these kinds of ideas and improvements to Battle. As it stands it is designed in vacuo by one person and limited to just what he (me) knows and thinks of. Hopefully by synthesis we all together will build a much better end product, one worthy of players' time and the TFT name.

My current design leans very heavily on TFT mechanics, so that it won't be utterly alien to RPG players who've never played a wargame, but at the same time is operationally distinct. Whether I've successfully created a transition from TFT attributes to Battle stats will be one of the big questions that playtesting will uncover. Another will be how well or poorly the map system works.

I've gotten a lot of responses already, many from people I had hoped would volunteer, and I'm really looking forward to getting this into your hands soon!

Re: TFT: Battle - Playtesters Sought
 

I totally agree on that point; it is essential that a module like this feels like it is seamlessly integrated with the core rules.

Another really important thing about skirmish- and larger scale combat is that it be capable of resolving outcomes without paperwork.

When I drew up rules of this sort for TFT, my first thought was to discretize the outcomes of attack rolls into several basic things:
- Nothing, or a minor wound not worth tracking
- Minor wound (you are not knocked down, but have effectiveness impacted on next turn).
- Major wound (you are knocked down. lose next action, and must stand before acting again)
- Dead

The way I thought this progression of outcomes should be addressed was through comparison with other good hex and chit games involving combat at this scale: You have a marker with a couple of attributes that indicates the capabilities of that unit. If the unit takes a 'minor wound' (or whatever phrase you want to use for units), it is marked with a temporary marker indicating it is disrupted or in some other way reduced in capabilities until the marker is removed. If the unit takes a 'major wound' it is flipped over, revealing the reduced capabilities of the badly degraded version of that unit. This is often referred to as a 'step loss' in such games. If the unit is killed/wiped out, it is removed from play (or possibly replaced with a marker if it takes up a meaningful amount of space at the scale of play).

The next thing to consider is how a TFT character's core stats, gear and talents should be abstracted into basic unit traits (like, an offensive score, defensive score and movement rate). My approach was to have the Offensive score be based on the expected damage value of the figure's average attack and the Defensive score be equal to armor (possibly tweaked for special talents when appropriate). Movement score is just MA (where turn time is set in proportion to hex scale so this is sensible).

Re: TFT: Battle - Playtesters Sought
 

As you will see, we are on the same page regarding a lot of this. I don't want to disclose too much while it's in development status, but I suspect you are going to see some very strong similarities in my approach. Even in regards to terminology. As would be expected when you have two grognards working on the same goal. ^_^

Re: TFT: Battle - Playtesters Sought
 

Looking forward to testing this out!

Re: TFT: Battle - Playtesters Sought
 

I'm hoping that this system also works well for 'Skirmishes' — fights involving just a few too many participants to handle normally, but not quite so many that you'd call it a large-scale 'Battle'.

I am working on an adventure that includes some action on the deck of a ship, where the map must (by necessity) be at normal combat hex scale, with only a few dozen combatants in total. I had been toying with ways to handle it quickly and easily, mostly centered on combining many of the non-PCs into groups that roll as one… but I'm quite new to TFT, and I doubt that my solution is properly balanced or comprehensive.

So, lead the way, Shadekeep!

Re: TFT: Battle - Playtesters Sought
 

It's great to hear that a "mass combat" product is being developed.

I just wanted to point to two resources in case they may be overlooked.

This is a relevant but short thread discussed back in September of last year: Suggestions for Mass Combat...?

In addition, David Pulver wrote rules for Mass Combat in GURPS in 2010. At 50 pages, a TFT version would only want to borrow so much, but it could still be mined for ideas. Unfortunately I never got into it enough to comment, but David is actively supporting TFT.

Re: TFT: Battle - Playtesters Sought
 

Yes indeed, it should do. In fact, the two scenarios I've included so far as learning exercises only use a few counters on both sides. Naturally those are going to be very short battles, but you'll be able to see how it works with small groups as well as armies.

The first scenario is actually called "Skirmish at the Bridge". ^_^

The rulebooks should be going out tonight if all goes to plan. Thanks again for all the support and interest!

Re: TFT: Battle - Playtesters Sought
 

Round 2 of the rules are starting playtest. Tons of great feedback from Round 1 and there have been significant changes. Anyone interested in coming on for the new round, PM me here with your email address and Discord handle. Thanks!

Re: TFT: Battle - Playtesters Sought
 

I will attempt to print the new counter set and try the revised game this weekend.

Re: TFT: Battle - Playtesters Sought
 

Third edition of Battle is out to playtesters. This is likely the last major revision of the rules, so it's sink-or-swim time for this expansion.

Re: TFT: Battle - Playtesters Sought
 

Is anything new happening with this?

I’m very interested.

Re: TFT: Battle - Playtesters Sought
 

Late to this thread, but was wondering if there were any concepts from Lords of Underearth that would be appropriate as that with its never published sequel, Conquerors of Underearth was a TFT compatible mass combat system.