Swift Swords Tactica RPWG

In SS-Tactica the land is ruled by Elves. Not your friendly, understanding, wise elves, but nasty, vicious, arrogant, superior elves. For longer than elves can remember (a very long time) they have been the supreme race of this world, born to rule, born to be served. They know this to their very cores. But things have changed, and elves don't handle change well.

There is a lesser race of elves, Feral Elves, with shorter life spans and in greater numbers. True Elves consider them to be less than ... elvish! Periodically True Elves will gather in numbers and eradicate an area of Feral Elves that have become a problem, ruthlessly. Because of this Feral Elves consider True Elves to be a mortal enemy. Feral elves are wild, closely bonded to their environment and very territorial.

Change. For starters the round ears have come from the sea in their thousands on giant ships. Not just thousands, but thousands and thousands, like a plague of rats. And they want to stay. Something will have to be done about that.

Humans are the invaders. Fleeing their old world in search of a new one. Their old world has been brought under the control of the Dark Lord, a creature of pure evil. The survivors have fled in a large fleet to find a new world where they can start again, only to find Elves! Uppity elves! Well there is plenty of space here, plenty of land if you clear away the trees! Enough for everyone really, what the hell is their problem!

Dwarves are the survivors. For longer than dwarves can remember (and that's a longer time), they have suffered the elves, mainly because the surface world was so boring and lacking in rock. But recently things have gone just a little too far. The elves have been asking for more and more, and rock doesn't grow on trees! Especially the rock they want, the metal. Dwarves are slow to act, slower to anger, but slow doesn't mean forever. Dwarves tend to occupy the hills and valleys of Aquilonia, digging into the ground to extract the riches of the earth. They have a very rigidly hierarchical society that does not handle variation very well. Because of this some dwarves leave the cities of the dwarves and travel the lands as traders, breaking free of the strictures of dwarvish society. Trader dwarves are notably different creatures to city dwarves.

Orcs are the beasts. Primitive, savage, tough and fast breeders. They are breed for war, they thrive in violence, they glorify victory at any cost. Violence is always an option! Elves are cowards, hiding in their accursed trees, using arrows to kill at range, never facing eye to eye. Dwarves are turtles, slow, ponderous, tough. But flip them in their backs and their bellies are just skin. And now there is a new foe, round ears! They look like elves but fight like men, they will need to be watched carefully.

Goblins are the shadows. Hide! Listen! Wait for the time. Goblins are small but they are very useful. Everyone uses Goblins for their dirty work, for the sneaky work. Goblins are weak, nobody fears a goblin. Goblins can wait, and the waiting may be over, the time may have come. The round ears have moved the balance and Goblins will use them, whether they like it or not. Goblins live to serve the Master, nice Master.

SS-Tactica is a role playing war game. I'm a war gamer at heart but I still love role playing. The perfect balance is an rpg that concentrates on the tactical side (gamist/simulationist) rather than the role playing. That's what SST will be. That is not to say you can't change the focus of how you play the game, but that's up to you.

Aquilonia is the world the game will be played in for the purposes of explaining the rules and giving the game the background and colour it needs. Aquilonia is a closed system world, a snapshot of a larger world with distinct geographic boundaries to limit the play area. Whether humans have come from another continent, or another world, is up to the GM to decide as their game progresses.

In Aquilonia the Elves have been the dominant race for thousands of years, longer than anyone can remember except maybe the dwarves. Elves are racial purists and supremacists, they believe they exist to rule, and that all other races exist to serve. They are arrogant, obnoxious and intolerant. They have extremely long life spans and accordingly a single elf is potentially very powerful. Their one area of weakness is that they breed very slowly and have a natural preference for a low population density. So there are fewer elves, and they are spread out, compared to other races. Elves are concentrated in the denser forests of Aquilonia, with occasional small groups wandering the lighter forest lands of the plains.

Over the last few hundred years a bushwar has been raging between the elves and the rest of the world. By unwritten agreement the other races are slowly breaking free from the yoke of the oppressive elves through a war of attrition. Where before tribute was paid to the elves, communities are fortifying or retreating to locations where they can defend themselves better against the more individually powerful elves. The strategy is working, with deaths exceeding births by sufficient numbers that the elves have been forced to curtail their oppression and take up travelling in larger but fewer groups. Unable to comprehend at first that their subjects could rebel against them, the elves have finely accepted what is happening. They were considering their response to this when the round ears arrived.

The arrival of the humans has caused confusion and caution by all parties. The numbers of humans, concentrated in one place, is a genuine problem for everyone. For now everyone is watching and waiting to see what happens. In this vacuum of inaction the humans (unknown to them) have a chance to snatch a place in the new world. But it wont be easy.

The basis of SST is that players will play the adventures of a group of exceptional (but not unique) individuals, hand picked by their superiors (or by their ship family), who undertake exploration and encounter missions. If they are successful it will improve the position of the humans and slowly expand their area of influence and control. They must achieve this under the danger of the various races deciding to act pre-emptively against the human invasion. Particularly it will be important to keep the elves off balance as they have the power to pose a serious threat if they act in a unified manner.

So SST is really several games being played on several levels. You dont have to use all the levels if you dont want to, or you may simply decide how some of the levels resolve themselves for the sake of the story and the actions of the players. But the actions of the players have to mean something, or they are pointless and without substance. So whatever the players do, and how successful they are, there should be an effect. It might be that one tribe of orcs attacks an elvish war party, preventing them from attacking a human settlement. It might be that a dwarvish trader agrees to trade with the humans and opens up superior weaponry they can trade for. It might be that a team of goblin spies might agree to work for them, resulting in some secret being revealed to them. It is the GMs role to develop the backstory and to have a varied, layered and flexible set of possibilites, hopefully in co-operation with their players.

At the top will be a strategic game which, simply put, will be how successful the humans are at expanding and holding their beachhead. In the worst case they will be driven back into the sea and wiped out. In the best case they will expand into the heartlands of Aquilonia and establish a kingdom, maybe even an Empire. This game will be done with zones and forces. Zones of land with control values, major structures and resources. Forces in the form of tribes, warparties and regiments of troops. More of a board game than a RPG.

At the bottom will be the players game, a group of adventurers given a mission and objective that they attempt to achieve, an adventure.

In between there can be a collection of games, factional games between various groups within the human population, each trying to achieve a specific outcome. Political games between various political forces. Military games between the forces deployed as units rather than groups. Economic games as the humans try to take control of sufficient land and materials to support their large, confined population.