Man & Machine: Turn Activation

One of the major hurdles I was trying to overcome was an activation system that was fairly simple, but involved both players at all time.

I have gone with a system that will allow players to alternately use models.

• Player 1 uses a model
• Player 2 uses a model
• Player 3 uses a model
• etc

The concept is that each player must plan their strategy and assign orders to each model.  Then once they are assigned the models are used one after the other.

My current system has 8 orders, such as move, shoot, use a skill etc, and are arranged around an octagon.  Players would place a paperclip on the order they want and place it face down next to the model or it's card.

Order wheel.   One per model.

One of the things I am trying to do with this system is to create a fairly cool looking game without spending loads of money on art, or having to do it all myself.  I have sourced some from RPGnow.com and of course I am making large use of http://game-icons.net/

Man & Machine

Rules Rules Rules

So many rules.

I am sure we could all use another set.

I have been considering a skirmish ruleset for sometime.  I had originally envisioned it as a fantasy type game, but then I thought, why not Sci-Fi?

There are certain aspects and mechanics that I really like in a simple fast skirmish game.

I am tentatively thinking of it being infantry and power armor based, hence Man and Machine as a working title.

1) No math

• This involves rolling a pool of attack, defense, skill dice aiming to hit a particular target.  Various games use this idea: Tomorrow's War, X-wing Miniatures, Conan etc
• Each die can be a success or a failure (Or possibly critical success or critical failure)

2) No writing

• Generally apart from possibly writing down and designing your forces life and effects are all tracked via chits and counters.  ie a player gets armor chits or life chits that are used to track each models status

3) Simple rules

• Simple set of rules to govern combat and basic movement.
• Simple skills that add depth, such as Technical, Medic etc.

4) Activation....

• I feel this aspect can really make a game interesting and I am not entirely sure how I want this to work yet.

I have some ideas rattling around as well as some notes on some post-its.  I will probably post some general ideas on the mechanics as I develop it here.