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[The Few] Game about Battle of Britain
The Few
It is the year 1940. Hitler’s Nazi hordes have overrun Europe, torn Czechoslovakia asunder, split Poland with the Bolsheviks and, with the speed of a lightning, crushed France along with the British expeditionary force. After having evacuated Dunkirk, the Great Britain now stands alone in its fight against the monstrous regime. On the shores of northern France, Germans are already amassing vast armies and starting preparations for a sea invasion of England.
The pilots of the Royal Air Force fight valiantly to defend English cities and to achieve the air superiority. They face the yet to be defeated might of the Nazi war machine. If they fail, the proud Albion will crumble. The famous Battle of Britain begins. Only a few of the pilots will survive to see its end, for the losses in the ranks of young pilots are astounding.
We would like to offer you a revised version of a game originally submitted to “Czech RPG Kitchen 2012 design contest " to download and try (for free of course). It is a game where players assume the roles of an RAF pilots and have to fight against Nazi superiority in the deadly dogfights in the skies. After missions, they have to live a normal life on the ground for a few hours. They go to the movies, get a few beers and have a chat with friends in a pub, occasionally make love, or just sit at home by the window, look at the sky and talk to the stars. Every morning after they have to fly off into unreal, savage world of terror in the clouds above and they know that they might not come back alive...
The “Czech RPG Kitchen 2012 design contest " is a Czech mutation of the "GameChef design contest " which already took place for six years in Czech Republic and Slovakia. The Few was there awarded with the third place and an acknowledgment for the best-written rulebook.
Feel free to comment! We would like to hear what you think about it!
- You can download The Few Rules.
- We also prepared some character sheets and interceptor plane sheets for your gaming.
- Add-on Amongst the Many.
- Add-on African Skies and Polish version Cyrk Skalskiego.
"I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat." (Winston Churchill, 13 May 1940)
It is the year 1940. Hitler’s Nazi hordes have overrun Europe, torn Czechoslovakia asunder, split Poland with the Bolsheviks and, with the speed of a lightning, crushed France along with the British expeditionary force. After having evacuated Dunkirk, the Great Britain now stands alone in its fight against the monstrous regime. On the shores of northern France, Germans are already amassing vast armies and starting preparations for a sea invasion of England.
The pilots of the Royal Air Force fight valiantly to defend English cities and to achieve the air superiority. They face the yet to be defeated might of the Nazi war machine. If they fail, the proud Albion will crumble. The famous Battle of Britain begins. Only a few of the pilots will survive to see its end, for the losses in the ranks of young pilots are astounding.
We would like to offer you a revised version of a game originally submitted to “Czech RPG Kitchen 2012 design contest " to download and try (for free of course). It is a game where players assume the roles of an RAF pilots and have to fight against Nazi superiority in the deadly dogfights in the skies. After missions, they have to live a normal life on the ground for a few hours. They go to the movies, get a few beers and have a chat with friends in a pub, occasionally make love, or just sit at home by the window, look at the sky and talk to the stars. Every morning after they have to fly off into unreal, savage world of terror in the clouds above and they know that they might not come back alive...
The “Czech RPG Kitchen 2012 design contest " is a Czech mutation of the "GameChef design contest " which already took place for six years in Czech Republic and Slovakia. The Few was there awarded with the third place and an acknowledgment for the best-written rulebook.
Feel free to comment! We would like to hear what you think about it!
- You can download The Few Rules.
- We also prepared some character sheets and interceptor plane sheets for your gaming.
- Add-on Amongst the Many.
- Add-on African Skies and Polish version Cyrk Skalskiego.
Comments
There are some beautiful touches in there: the farewell letters, the photographs.
All: Really thanks for your interest, guys. If you can find time for skim reading/reading, comments are most welcomed.
I'm super-keen to play!
If I find typos and grammar issues, shall I post them here. (The translation is great, but there are a few incorrectly applied plurals and the odd passage which is grammatically weird).
Are you happy for me to broadcast that this exists?
We would be also glad for reporting any grammar issues and typos. It is after all translation from another language. If we can improve the game (grammar or otherwise), we will happily do it.
For spreading a word about the game we would be grateful too.
I also like how the three dice and the progression of skillpoints means that in the beginning it is mostly luck if your pilot makes it while later skill plays a bigger role.
Some grammatical oddities are there but I will leave it to the native speakers to point those out.
I've browsed it once, and I just wanted to play this game. I really like the way you've eased the dogfight mechanism (I wouldn't thought it was possible to simulate it so easily). I quite like the little details that link the game and the daily life of the pilots (the photo and the farewell letter, for example, but also the "Base phase" which can tell a lot about the character attitude and builds the story).
To make it complete, the only thing I see right now would be to add character sheets and/or plane sheets.
By the way, is it published under an open/free license? would it be possible to translate it?
Biest: Thing is that beginner pilots need to rely on luck, so they take Debts and fly over their limits... and than he needs more Debts to avoid failing. And than one day even that isn´t enough... and pilot just don´t come back from mission. Only handful are lucky or skilled enough to survive the whole battle, let alone the whole war.
brunobord: Character sheets and plane sheets were planned, but never materialized.
About license - truth to say, we didn´t gave it much thoughts so far. But the game is free to download and we gave it here so you can try it and work with it if you want to. If you would like to translate the game, we would thrilled! We are really glad that you like it so to even consider it.
Thanks also for the link, this battleofbriatinblog.com appears really interesting.
For a lighter tone (e.g. if you wanted to play with younger children, or if your group don't feel comfortable with the Battle of Britain setting for whatever reason), you could also play this with a more fantastic Ruritania/Porco Rosso sort of background.
As you say, it takes only a few minor changes in rules to play a pulp game like Crimson Skies (pilot survives being shot down on 2+, if landing with damaged plane roll only against 4 and in case of crash pilot dies only on result 1; planes of pilots can have more damage points and can buy ammunition for cannons... etc.). You can create your own planes with different attributes, so basically with these rules you can play whatever setting you like (WW1 Biggles-like dogfights, steampunk airship pirates, Star Wars Rogue Squadron, etc.).
* RAF 1
* RAF 2
* RAF 3
* RAF 4
* Luftwaffe 1
* Luftwaffe 2
* Luftwaffe 3
* Luftwaffe 4
has it been tested with this kind of order:
* RAF 1
* Luftwaffe 1
* RAF 2
* Luftwaffe 2
* RAF 3
* Luftwaffe 3
* RAF 4
* Luftwaffe 4
Would it make a big difference? I'm not sure since I didn't play the game yet, so I was wondering if this turn order would be better, worse, or even.
It is of course possible to use the second type of order. It would not alter the game significantly.
There's some things I want to nitpick about, though. Two-thirds of the RAF pilots in The Battle of Britain were officers, one third being sergeants and flight sergeants. It would make sense for new characters to start out either as pilot officers or sergeants, the sergeants never progressing beyond the rank of flight sergeant. Now The Few makes it seem like the normal progression is from an NCO to an officer, while in reality most officers probably never held any NCO rank.
I noticed something about tailing. The rules claim "You can shoot during a fly-by but the chance to hit this way is very small. It is better to tail the opponent first to obtain a better shooting position, see below." It's not nearly always better: shooting during a fly-by is a better option if the opponent is a better pilot than you and you have a good gunnery skill. I'm talking about the rules probabilities here, not reality.
Also, I can't quite picture a situation where you'd want to gain altitude as opposed to doing something else. And there seems to be no advantage to being a wingman to other fighters, only bombers. This might be accurate, though.
For aircraft models, we used a piece of A4 paper cut into eighths (should have done 16ths) and folded into paper darts
We started in media res in the air on a Ranger mission over the channel. Not realising how truly deadly this game is I had them fight 2 109s and a 110 that were crossing the channel on a shipping raid. The guys were pounded into dust by the enemy quite quickly and only one of them managed to bail out and survive.
The options for tailing or not tailing etc worked well and really created a feeling of desperation as the decisions were made round by round as to whether to engage immediately or bide time for a better shot.
We didn't get time to do any after mission stuff and will do that next week when we start again and play a full session.
A couple of little nitpicks. The ME109 carried 55 seconds of Ammunition (this I believe included the cannon ammunition). The Spitfire carried 14 seconds. (I'm not sure about the Hurricane).
In general, the ME was the better plane than the Spit in all areas but tight turning. The ME should get a bonus to "getaway" rolls due to the advantage of fuel injection allowing a steep dive that a carburettor does not. ME's could escape by diving away. Spits had to wing-over in order to follow otherwise their engines would temporarily cut out.
The disadvantages the ME had were mainly tactical rather than to do with the machine itself. Firstly, the 109 only had enough fuel for 10 minutes over England. Most fights aren't going to last this long but counting rounds as minutes might be fun as this would force the enemy to turn tail after a point.
The other one was that Goering ordered that fighters should fly close escort for bombers rather than range and destroy as many enemy fighters as possible. This made destroying British fighters (and ironically actually protecting the bombers) extremely difficult. I'm not sure how you would emulate this other than to not allow German aircraft to tail British aircraft where bombers are present??
The advantage that the British had were mainly tactical too. The Radar system allowed for planes to get into the air early enough to easily intercept high flying enemies. Maybe British aircraft defending British soil could start with an altitude advantage as well as the advantage of going first?
I'd also point out that German fighters flying escort couldn't really choose to engage enemy fighters unless those fighters engaged them. Often, the heaviest German losses came on the way back to base. Because the fighters had to leave the battle so early, bombers were often attacked without the benefit of fighter cover. I think in my game, there will be quite a few unescorted bombers to shoot down during patrol missions.
All in all, this is a really fun game. It feels a little like "Contenders" mechanically, which is not a bad thing. Thanks for making it @Ecthelion
The problem might be that it links Rank with Competency, well not necessarily in the actual field of combat but in some area at least. Ther also is the problem with historicity that Upstart mention. Maybe dividing Rank and Level can be worth it or is at least worth a thought.
StuMc: You really played The Few? That is so awesome!
It is us who thank you... a lot actually! And that you want to play further? It is the best appreciation we can ever get.
Thank also for all your suggestions. We will think them out.
Biest: We probably would need to alter the ranks somehow in the future, so thank you also for your comment.
Actually, in a roleplaying game I'd make the characters make non-tactical, value-related choices like this: younger pilots serving as wingmen would be strictly optimal for the flight, but would bring no personal glory and aerial victories for the wingmen. So there would be a tasty conflict between the group and the individual. Also, you already kind of have the turning back option, which is safer for the pilot, but it may also mean letting his flight down. Just things that popped in my head. I don't think anyone needs to progress beyond the rank of flight lieutenant, The Few has a feel of a flight-level game.
Also, too, the class divisions in the British service between officer and enlisted is too juicy to ignore--the hardened flight sergeant who's been flying planes since the "kites with internal combustion engines" days vs. the toff from Oxbridge who got six weeks in flight school and now thinks he can shoot down Jerries. So, I think Officer/NCO status should be a player choice. Is the squadron all hard-working NCOs? College kids just signed up? Some mix?
I will note in passing that the RAF had the rank of Warrant Officer for NCOs who needed to be able to command officers/other NCOs; that probably solves the issue of promoting PCs who start as NCOs.
Actually, you already have the natural division of "rank" in the game--the kill count. Making Ace was a Big Deal, and double-Ace on up was an even bigger deal. Maybe you can use that as the break points? (You already do now, with the Ace/DSC/DSO awards). Perhaps the PC with the highest kill count after each mission gets an extra XP? (Or divide it, like highest for a mission vs highest overall each getting a bennie.) And maybe then you could even let PCs start with some kills, maybe trading Debt for experience.
(You might want to also consider giving XP for whether the mission was a success, or half-kills for assists, if you want to avoid having all the PCs suddenly hot-dogging it. Or hell, just award it for number of missions flown with maybe a bonus for combat kills--the debt spiral will ensure that the more missions you fly, the closer you are to buying it :-) )
I think I might also let the GM assign decorations as she saw fit, based on mission performance, with maybe "bucking for decoration/going to bat for my wingman" as a possible base scene. (Does your toff CO refuse to decorate working class blokes? Or does he disdain those Oxbridge aristos? Or, even better, does he refuse to promote/decorate people from the wrong university/college/house?)
But these are tweaks. The highest compliment I can give you, Ecthelion, is that I immediately began to think about how I could get a group together to play this game!
You are almost certainly right about the highest ranks. We have to take a serious look at them.
Aviatrix: Excellent suggestions all, thank you for them! We are really pleased that you like it. Thank you.
Still loving this and will play again on Sunday!
I find myself wondering whether having variable altitudes for the sides might create a more interesting fight. (and altitude more of a factor).
Will let you know after I've played the game straight a few more times.
Stu.
Btw. - on your first mission, did player pilots shot down any of German planes? Which enemy pilots did you used (newbie/veteran/aces)? How do you mean it? That one side would start with few altitude counters and other (that was lower) have none? Or something else entirely?
The former. Height is a massive deal in WWII aerial combat. Scenarios could even be generated where for example the British might pounce on two enemy bombers from above on their way home but every round dice are rolled to see if they are spotted by German fighters and attacked from above themselves. At that point, do they stay and fight or run for it?
btw, I just shared this on G+.
https://plus.google.com/u/0/106869300898899999469/posts/8dJWHggdfER
I'm afraid we didn't get to play on Sunday. We had too many for The Few...heh.
Hopefully we'll play next Sunday.
We also tried to play The Few as play-by-post (as part of betatesting) and found out that it works too (only the combat missions of course):
It's mostly just a reskin. There are two main changes:
1) Everyone has to build a model of their vehicle out of Lego.
2) Character advancement is slightly different: when a craft is damaged, or destroyed (shot down), a piece of the Lego model is removed. Other pilots can then go and grab that piece to add to their own vehicle and make it more powerful.
- The idea of building vehicles out of LEGO is brilliant.
- Did we understood it properly, that most battles take place on Earth, but mechs are also adapted to fly and so battle in the space? Or all battles are on the ground?
- The Few is quite deadly - did you maintained the death rate of pilots and so a bit uneasy atmosphere of struggle against superior odds... or have you changed it and have more pulp-ish atmosphere?
(I now realise the description of "bombers" suggests they are only spacecraft. Maybe I should rename them to "behemoths" or something.) I kept the original level of deadliness. For me, it's a selling point!
It may not be a great reflection of the source material, though.
Possible fix:
Lives
Each PC starts with 3 "lives". When their mech is destroyed, the player may ensure they survive by spendping one life instead of making a survival roll. But when your lives have run out, you must roll as normal.
We prepared some character sheets and interceptor plane sheets for your gaming. Enjoy!
We are now about to fly a mission where player pilots have to save two ATA* female pilots, who were flying new planes to frontline airfields, but departed from course and came under attack of few Bf 109s. Little "Damsel in Distress" inspiration.
*The Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA) was a British World War II civilian organisation that ferried new, repaired and damaged military aircraft between factories, assembly plants and active service airfields. Pilots who flied for ATA often were considered to be unsuitable for reasons of age or fitness for RAF, there were pilots from neutral countries and, notably, also women pilots.
Also pleased to see mention of ATA pilots- makes me nostalgic for this brief TV spot about Marion Orr.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_Witches
A hack for this group would be awesome!
We are now thinking about small add-on set in North Africa. Desert, heat, Italians and sand everywhere... well, we´ll see how it goes.
Thank you very much for this game, it has brought a gaming group back together after many years of no RPGs. I am running the game on roll20 and at first my invited players (old friends and gaming buddies) were quite skeptical of playing 20th century Englishmen. However, after the first mission they were hooked and we have now played the past two weekends, with plans for the next!
Out group are members of the 601st Squadron "the Millionaires Mob", recruited from Whites Club. I asked that all players first characters to be members of Whites with all the social ramifications this implies, while replacements can be from any strata of English or Empire society. This should create an interesting dynamic as the upper crust nabobs have to learn to value the common man or even *gasp* foreigner.
The 601 served in the Battle of Britain mostly at Tangmere , then went to North Africa , Malta , and Italy. I intend to follow the unit though the war. I am very interested in your take on the desert, as well as the Italian aircraft. The Macchi C202 in particular.
I have created stats for the Do 17 , and Ju 87 , as they played a part in the Battle of Britain. My pilots all ready have several Stuka kills...I would be happy to share these if you like.
Again, just wanted to thank you for many hours of pleasure already , and I expect many more to come!
First idea is to replace Spitfire with/add Kittyhawk (apart from Hurricane the main interceptor in North Africa before Spitfires got dust filters and were able to flight there), add new planes - Italian MC 200s and MC 202s, SM.79 bombers and German Bf 109F and Stukas. Possibility is also to include "obsolete" planes like Gloster Gladiator or Fiat CR.42, which fly fine and fight other "obsolete" planes, but face serious penalties when fighting modern aircrafts. Absolutely! If you would post them here, we would be delighted! That you started to play and intend to play further is the greatest praise we can get. Thank you for letting us know!
New Aircraft Stats
Dornier Do 17 (Luftwaffe)
A medium bomber that is exceptionally maneuverable at low altitude. Replaced by the Ju 88 in the fast bomber role. Primarily used in recon/special missions.
Special Rules
With no altitude markers the aircraft only has a -2 to piloting.
Junkers Ju 87 "Stuka" (Luftwaffe)
A dive bomber that excels at striking ground targets, the Stuka is the airborne artillery of the Luftwaffe. It proved to be susceptible to modern interceptors.
Special Rules
No AA bonus to straight approach ground attack.
Tail gun can shoot anyone who targets an action against the aircraft.
-2 to piloting rolls.
I have also separated promotions from character ability advancement. (If the RAF in WW2 was like any other bureaucracy / military organization then rank has little to do with skill. ) And am using the following advancement rules:
-Surviving a play session rewards the character with 1 ability point.
-Every 5 kills awards an ability point.
-Damaging any aircraft counts as an assist. 2 assist equal 1 kill for ability point purposes.
- Dornier is lovely, no problems there.
- Stuka was extremly vulnerable against enemy interceptors and above England suffered heavy casualties. It was slow, with poor maneuverability and poor defenzive weaponry (only one machine gun at the back). On the other hand as dive bomber it was terribly effective.
So I think it would be plane with damage points like interceptor, not like bomber (only 2 points) and tail machine gun (Perhaps only against those who tail a Stuka? It is not so effective as multiple machineguns of bombers?).
"No AA bonus to straight approach ground attack." - lovely! It explains the effectivity of the dive bombing.
"-2 to piloting rolls." - absolutely.
I think there will be Dornier and Stuka in North Africa add-on.
- Separation of rank and advancement is also interesting. Do you have then any mechanicla use for rank? Or it is purely story thing?
As far as rank is concerned, no mechanics are involved. As the GM I get to play Fighter Command, and promotions are entirety up to me.
Thus far, one pilot has been promoted mostly because he was the only character to survive two sessions.
I really can't see the players advancing past Squadron Leader, I want them in the air!