Knights of The Golden Throne: IK/TK RPG

[Mazer Rackham]

 

KNIGHTS OF THE GOLDEN THRONE

 

++ A TIME OF CHIVALRY AND FEALTY, IN AN AGE OF SACRIFICE ++

 

 

"Who could have seen it?  What man in their right mind, would have questioned it at the time?

Who could have foreseen that the Dragon of Horus was not some Imperial Messenger sent to bring wonder and fortune,

but a Tyrant of Iron, who brought only fire, and granted death?"

 

- Freidrich Goetz, "The Iron Hand", Freeblade.

 

 

What is KOGT?

 

Many moons ago, a noble frater by the name of Noctus Cornix came up with an idea for a Black Crusade RPG game which focussed on the Horus Heresy.  This spiralled into a discussion on the Imperial Knight Houses, namely Scions, who might find themselves on different sides, vying for overall control of the House.

 

Part BC and part 'Game Of Thrones', it generated a lot of passionate interest.  Now GoT has passed us all by, it has gone off the boil somewhat, but the ghost of both the TV Series and the idea of the game stalk the halls of the RPG Forum.

 

This thread is intended to open the discussion of such a premise being viable, what steps to take to make it work, and how to cater it to both this forum and our frater.

 

Privately, I have conversed briefly with some frater versed in the matter of tabletop stompy robots (Battletech/Mechwarrior to be specific) and they presented several options to me to make a mechanical (pardon the pun) framework upon which to hang an RPG game.  This is step away from Fantasy Flight or Cubicle 7 games, providing us with an opportunity to develop an RPG within the Warhammer universe that covers an aspect of the game no other books have outside of individual GM's and their adaptations of already existing materials.

 

So, to move this forward, first things first:

 

What do you all think of the premise, and in order to ascertain how much work is involved, do you consider a ruleset framework to be of value in such a game as this?

[A.T.]

In terms of tying into a Black Crusade game the Rogue Trader space combat rules could potentially be re-used with a few minor modifications (and a few less minor modifications for close quarters combat).

 

Raider and frigate sized hulls, cruisers for castellans. Crew values re-named as general system integrity, etc.

The various books boil down to - Viper,Iconoclast,Meritech,Havoc (light) / Sword,Falchion,Firestorm,Turbulent(medium) / Dauntless,Endeavour,Lathe,Secutor(heavy).

[Mazer Rackham]

Hmm, nice idea, AT, I hadn't thought of that.

 

Although I wasn't trying to tie it to a BC game, it was more of a stand-alone kind of thing we could cook up, maybe in GURPS (one of the suggestions made to me) but I like that RT idea a lot.

 

I was also thinking on the fluff front we'd have to home-cook a Knight House, a Demesne, alliances and all that kind of bag, so that RT idea solves a lot of legwork.

[Xin Ceithan]

I am -still- totally in love with this idea!

 

The sheer scale of this is .. daunting. There is a real large playing field here to cover, both ruleswise and in terms of fluff.

 

Any ideas already as were you want to start? Is this current 40k or earlier ?

[Mazer Rackham]

The scope is certainly large - almost large enough to be a Special Project, but I think it's workable within the confines of the Nook for now, to see how much traction we can get with it.  Essentially our setting will be the Horus Heresy (ideally), but we could move that about a bit.

 

For a framework as AT suggested, Rogue Trader will have to be tweaked, or hotch-potch rebuilt, so that players can get into a rules-light system which will support those with heavy technical understanding of the Admech, the Heresy....etc etc.

 

This will require input from a lot of the guys/gals who know the systems and lore, so it's a proper community project.

 

Depending on how many threads we need to break this into, we may have to spread our wings a little bit, and dump some Lore stuff in our sister forum, the Liber.  We can brainstorm any ideas in here first though.

Edited September 19, 2021 by Mazer Rackham

[Lysimachus]

It's a great idea, lots of opportunity for politicking and rivalry between characters.

 

Is it the idea to include bits of story/rp both in and out of their Knights?

 

I don't know much about the other FFG games, and nothing about Battletech, but I'm well up for helping work out the fluff!

[Mazer Rackham]

The overall gameplay would certainly reflect the pilots in and out of their war engines, as it would take into scope the battles they took part in, depending on the threats and who they sided with.

 

In the background it's going to be like Dune, I would imagine, with lethal politics and the risks to their skins laughing at the wrong joke, and in the foreground, it's Stompy Robot Time, where they're trying to blow their rivals/enemies of the Emeperor apart in spectacular void-shield blitzing fashion.

 

Any Lore help is cool, and Battletech know-how is not required.

 

I think very much like Rogue Trader, we could have a Matriarch/Patriarch of a House who are notoriously independent, with Admech Autonomy caught up in things they didn't bargain for, trying to survive/vanquish/usurp through whatever means necessary.

 

It could even have the seeds sown during the slaughter of the Technocratic Brotherhood perhaps, where it's obvious Horus is just trying to bag the swag.

 

Lore Nuts will know how workable this is...

 

EDIT: I am out of likes for you all (I really appreciate all contributions!)

 

EDIT 2: @ AT, how malleable are the ship combat rules in RT?

Edited September 19, 2021 by Mazer Rackham

[Xin Ceithan]

DUNE with stomps robots you say ? Dreamy!

 

Actually the new Dune RPG has a chapter on creating your own noblehouse… it is mostly picking traits (what are they known for, their major area of interests and assets and so on). No idea how that comes into play systenwise.. I bought it a while ago and haven’t gotten to really look into it .

 

But as with RT … I think this is the big jumping off point: Making the knight household sort of the main character by itself?

 

(And, of course, how to decide on a knight engine chassis for the PCs

Edited September 19, 2021 by Xin Ceithan

[Mazer Rackham]

But as with RT … I think this is the big jumping off point: Making the knight household sort of the main character by itself?

 

(And, of course, how to decide on a knight engine chassis for the PCs )

 

I was thinking of it as a few knight houses under one Dynast, each led by a Scion or families, but could easily be just family members in one House.  I think it's scalable enough an idea.

 

So could be a pocket empire, ruled over by the Knight Houses, interlocking oaths of fealty, until the Heresy comes along and makes that a little more...flexible.

 

The RT ruleset could help with how Houses are rich enough, as to what class of Knight you can "requisition", so you need a couple of Tyros ambushing a senior Knight pilot, or bankrupting the family purse, by buying a heavyweight that gets 'Starked' because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and now the House is in penury.

[Xin Ceithan]

I like how you think. And this is very Game of Throny

[A.T.]

EDIT 2: @ AT, how malleable are the ship combat rules in RT?

The core combat rules are fairly straightforward - ships have a position and a facing on a 2d grid, and in their turn they can move and shoot and also make an extended action for the turn such as pushing their engines, emergency repairs, scanning for targets, etc).

 

Most differences between ships come down to how they are equipped and the skills of the characters onboard. Secondary damage also builds up over time though smaller ships tend to explode before that gets really bad - it's more a factor of cumulative damage from multiple battles when you have been able to repair but not dock and restock between them.

 

In simplistic terms weapons have range, damage per hit, maximum hits per shot and critical chance that are all somewhat balanced against each other and their size and power requirements. They are broadly split into three types - macro-weapons to chew through armour and shields with weight of fire, lances which just get one shot but ignore armour, and torpedoes that are potent but restrictive.

 

Beyond that ships can also ram and board, the latter could be considered similar to a tech-attack.

 

 

If a ship was limited to a single extended action and had to angle its shields like a knight then choosing which action to take becomes a bit of a gambit - do you put out a fire before it spreads, brace your systems against an attack, or put everything into your next shot (etc).

 

Lethality is something you'd have to play with. Macrocannon grouping (combined damage) is probably manageable with a single attack roll rather than two combined attacks, lances could perhaps halve armour instead of ignoring it - though the scales can tip pretty quickly towards long drawn-out attrition, perhaps mitigated with armour reduction from any hit that scores exactly 0 damage or similar.

[Mazer Rackham]

That's fabulous AT, thank you.

 

Very interesting indeed.  I love the idea of having to risk angling the shields - it prevents an "I go, you go, but I go last, so I win" from a design perspective.

 

We'd have to playtest the combat to tweak the damage/rolls etc.  I think if we start making headway on this, I'll have to pick up at least the core book to get a handle on it.  Once it's done we could PDF it perhaps, and even get it in the downloads section of the site.

 

Fluffwise, what does everybody think of the Dynast and smaller houses idea as a starter? (This is the bit it gets Dune-y and Battletech-y)  I'm thinking to build this like an "example" sandbox, like the Calixis Sector, or The Jericho Reach.

[Beren]

Damn, I almost missed this. I'll be very interested in seeing how this plays out, and contributing if I can.

 

Speaking of Games of Thrones stuff, The Ice and Fire rpg had a tonne of stuff on creating a custom noble house with history and territory and playing it over time which might be partially translatable.

[Mazer Rackham]

Glad you didn't miss it!

 

The Ice and Fire RPG, as well as the Dune book, will certainly be something we could look at in our House Creation - the time lapse element is definitely something we should consider during planning; how the houses change over time between campaigns will allow pivotal moments to form, where campaigns could be staged.

 

Any help is always appreciated :)

[A.T.]

Very interesting indeed.  I love the idea of having to risk angling the shields - it prevents an "I go, you go, but I go last, so I win" from a design perspective.

Split each turn into two halves - gambits and shields first (followed by resolution) then move and combat actions. Knights further down the initiative order would be able to react to the higher init knights locking onto them, could auger-scan for their shield facing, etc.

 

I toyed with an RT-based mech ruleset years ago though there wasn't much interest so it never got past early investigation. Basic gameplay was:

 

> Start of combat

- surprise round (if required)

- roll initiative

 

> Combat phase

- declare extended action (in order of initiative) - some consideration was given to higher rank characters getting more than one action here

- resolve extended actions (in order of initiative, but opposed actions happened together - i.e. offensive and defensive actions would go off together)

- resolve movevment and attacks (in order of initiative)

- resolve any end of phase effects (timers ticking down, new targets arriving, etc)

 

A knight declared shield facing when one of the following things happened (and kept that shield facing for the remainder of the turn):

- a surprise turn was announced (before the ambush started)

- an augury scan was directed against them

- they were first subject to an attack in the turn

 

Extended action list:

- Augury scan (general) - detect hidden hazards, etc

- Augury scan (focussed) - determine shield facings, knight components

- Lock on target - bonus to attack roll

- Reload - torpedoes

- Aid the machine spirit - bonus to passive movement and detection

- Emplore the machine spirit - temporarily improve [morale] rating by 1d5 per degree of success, not cumultive with itself

- Goad the machine spirit - reduce [morale] damage from hits this turn

- Brace/withstand - reduce systems (population) damage from hits this turn

- Emergency repairs (general) - repair one damaged (but not destroyed) component in 1d5 rounds, less one round per degree of success

- Energency repairs (firefighting) - deal with ongoing damage from some critical hits (particularly from melta weapons)

- Flank speed - increase speed at risk of damaging motive systems

- Hail the enemy - to talk, intimidate, etc

- Jam communications/sensors

- Maul - the RT hit and run action, essentially close combat

- Defend - against mauling

- Knight Master - 'put your backs into it' from RT, bonuses that only applied if you had two or more extended actions to use from being a high rank.

- System-specific action - use any component with an extended activation trigger

- Combine fire - a speculative(untested) extended action to combine macrobattery fire

 

 

Weapons:

- macrocannons were not normally grouped

- lances halved armour (rounding down)

- torpedoes (missiles) were TBD

- any hit that did exactly 0 damage reduced armour on that facing to a minimum of half starting armour

- 'turret rating' was replaced with a general agility/defense property that helped avoid mauling and missiles

 

 

'Morale' was used for the machine spirit. The worse the morale rating the worse the knight performed, and if it hit 0 the pilots interface would fail.

'Population' was used for internal systems damage which would progressively cripple a knight over multiple combats without access to full repair facilities.

 

Movement was an area I hadn't put much thought into, the original system had more momentum and limited turning arcs than would be suitable for a knight.

- evasive action and ramming(shoulder barging) were included here

 

 

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While rogue trader does have a system of wealth and prestige it is probably too simplistic and easily abused for your needs. For starting characters though it did trade wealth for power - if your ship had rare or expensive components your character would start the game with significantly less personal wealth as a result and the ship itself might be in some disrepair if you had gone big without the ability to back it up.

[Xin Ceithan]

That is a very nice set up! 
 

I think the major issue in this Part of game will be how to resolve Knight combat — RT assumes ship to ship combat  ( with several classes of ships) but  knights can be facing anything from infantry to Titan sized Opponentin theory, which each brings it‘s own challenges.
But your set up looks very good for Knight on Knight combat, which we are assuming to be the main focus here.  BRW can knights actually repair during combat - I always assumed that was something at the Titan level, which have access to more crew / an onboard techpriest ? 

 

Coming from a Mechwarrior / Battletech set up, I remember how much time actual battles took. We did play that out on the Tabletop as we felt the (old) rule set didn’t allow the range of tactics or immersion. But these often took up whole days of play - so we basically set them up as more of an event than a session of RP.  

That did work rather well in the Solaris VII ( Gladiator / dueling mechs) version of the gam, though. It was nice having actual “Fight nights”.

There is certainly something to be said for having somethings work in narrative time and structured time play here.

 

I have no idea how Knight combat plays in current AT - could that be used, over Discord or such? (I think the focus is on entire banners though)

 

There is also a torrent of fluff questions running through my head…

 

Where is this set? Do the knights have ties to a local forge?

what were like before contact with the Great Crusade? Were they welcoming Compliance or were they fighting it?

I think figuring out what Expedition fleet made contact - read which legion(s) would have huge a huge impact on the settiing and the outlook of the Knight house / families alone…

[Mazer Rackham]

That's a solid setup to go from AT,  

 

It suggests that this could scale up very well to larger Engines, for example, a proper Titan battle could be run using this - although I'm not suggesting it, as that's bloat we don't need at the moment! ;)

 

I think we should go through the ruleset above and see how adaptations could be made.  Although being on a PBP board really helps with pacing, I suspect.  When so many actions can be dumped into a post, it doesn't really matter as you don't have a PC across the table, waiting.  I think the question is to how immediate we want the play?

 

@Xin, nothing has been decided about that yet, Explorator fleets and such, all up in the air so feel free to toss out ideas - albeit stay clear of the Alpha Legion?  Remember the First Rule of the AL!

 

I think we can tweak the weapons to be dangerous against infantry/armour/engines.  Maybe in the class order.  Power, reloading and heat management could come into this as well, like plasma guns overheating to stop spamm0rs.

[Beren]

Re-AT, I'd say the knight-specific mechanics in it are on a much larger scale than what we probably want. Maybe for full on knight army vs army scenario, but not for individual duels or knight armour customisation etc.

 

That said, some of the rules for Titans might be taken as inspiration, since AT focuses on the scale which gives detail to individual titans and we'd be focusing on the scale that gives detail to individual knights.

 

Re-fluff I think limited space-travel and an in-system polity across multiple planetary bodies and satellites could make things a little more interesting than just being on one planet.

[Commissar Molotov]

Two notes:

 

Per Xin's comment - most ordinary troops are chaff, and should be either ignored outright or you could use the horde rules from Deathwatch. (You only really need to care about troops with anti-tank weapons, etc.)

 

Secondly, I think Knight Chassis should certainly have quirks akin to either Power Armour in Deathwatch or the histories in Rogue Trader for vessels. To really play up the idea these are venerable steeds with their own temperaments.

[A.T.]

I think the major issue in this Part of game will be how to resolve Knight combat — RT assumes ship to ship combat  ( with several classes of ships) but  knights can be facing anything from infantry to Titan sized Opponentin theory, which each brings it‘s own challenges.

 

At it's heart the ranged combat system generates a number of hits which compare damage to armour and subtracts the remainder from hitpoints - smaller targets like infantry would just have very low armour and/or hitpoint values allowing multi-hit weapons to mow through them.

Shields might need to be altered slightly as in RT they just blocked the first hit(s) from each attacker with no chance of failure. That's just an extra dice-roll though.

 

BRW can knights actually repair during combat - I always assumed that was something at the Titan level, which have access to more crew / an onboard techpriest ?

 

In-combat emergency repairs RT don't restore hitpoints or destroyed systems, it's more of a bypass/reboot to restore power to something that was damaged by a lucky hit - the ikd star trek 'switch to auxiliary systems'.

[Mazer Rackham]

That said, some of the rules for Titans might be taken as inspiration, since AT focuses on the scale which gives detail to individual titans and we'd be focusing on the scale that gives detail to individual knights.

 

Re-fluff I think limited space-travel and an in-system polity across multiple planetary bodies and satellites could make things a little more interesting than just being on one planet.

 

I agree with this, it's one of the things that could give us very rich character creation and truly unique Knights, as well as Scion pilots.

 

The Pocket Empire/Cut off Sector idea has bumped up a couple of times, and I think this is definitely the preferred setting.  So we'll need to homebrew up a sector, cut off by Warp storms after the Great Expansion, Mechanicus Ark fleet somewhere involved perhaps, so plenty of STC's etc.

 

Per Xin's comment - most ordinary troops are chaff, and should be either ignored outright or you could use the horde rules from Deathwatch. (You only really need to care about troops with anti-tank weapons, etc.)

 

Secondly, I think Knight Chassis should certainly have quirks akin to either Power Armour in Deathwatch or the histories in Rogue Trader for vessels. To really play up the idea these are venerable steeds with their own temperaments.

 

Great minds! Yes - I agree, we'd still need to have massed Infantry as a threat,  Hordes or Squadrons of vehicles (who acted like Hordes, perhaps?) and transplanting a few armour histories would add to the flavour of the Knight.

 

Shields might need to be altered slightly as in RT they just blocked the first hit(s) from each attacker with no chance of failure. That's just an extra dice-roll though.

[sNIP]

 

In-combat emergency repairs RT don't restore hitpoints or destroyed systems, it's more of a bypass/reboot to restore power to something that was damaged by a lucky hit - the ikd star trek 'switch to auxiliary systems'.

 

The shields I think could work as forcefields do in Deathwatch, ie on a percentile roll, since void shields are sketchy at best, and misunderstood (later on anyway) at worst.  I have a few ideas on how to streamline the combat, it's just doing that, without taking away the mass and feel of a walking tank.

 

On the self-repair, I can see the repair functioning as AT says, it isn't fixed, it's kind of like Pain Suppressant - the damage is still there, but it works for 1D5 turns or what have you, before it well and truly breaks.

 

Just to touch on Xin's comment about Discord, I think we look at this as self-contained system.  We can't have guys rooting around 3 different sytems to find out they've just had their left foot blown off... ;)

Edited September 20, 2021 by Mazer Rackham

[A.T.]

On the self-repair, I can see the repair functioning as AT says, it isn't fixed, it's kind of like Pain Suppressant - the damage is still there, but it works for 1D5 turns or what have you, before it well and truly breaks.

 

The way RT works the way it does is that it is relatively easy to take briefly crippling damage - any given critical hit can knock a weapon or system offline for a couple of rounds but only the damage it recieves once it hits 0 hull points (or from unusually deadly attacks) will permanently destroy things and/or cause it to explode.

 

It means you can always get lucky or unlucky, but one attack is only going to be a temporary shift rather than an encounter-ending loss of weaponry or mobility.

 

----------------------------

 

With regards to backgrounds the RT ships have a choice of either two tables (core book for machine spirit oddities and history) or a single combined background package (into the storm).

They are quite varied as starting points but the core components of a ship/knight also shape it heavily, for example a ship that skimps out on life sustainers(system damage protection) to squeeze in additional ammo reserves or has to mount shorter-ranged macroweapons due to the power drain from their oversized auger array.

[Beren]

Re- repairing in combat: Certain models of Knight have access to Blessed Autosimulcra, which involves varying types of magic/super science self-repair system.

[Xin Ceithan]

I stand corrected. This is why I leave the rules to you guys! :)

 

But I do like the idea of making the knights unique with something like quirks and armour history analogies. 
 

[Mazer Rackham]

I've been racking my brain all night over these rules and have come up with a few adaptations, although for the better I don't know.

 

How much crunch do players think is appropriate - notwithstanding my comments earlier about PBP, I am just wondering if a hybrid ruleset that moves a bit faster might help players with limited posting time.

 

Be warned, this could result in a brain strain.

 

Split each turn into two halves - gambits and shields first (followed by resolution) then move and combat actions. Knights further down the initiative order would be able to react to the higher init knights locking onto them, could auger-scan for their shield facing, etc.

 

I don't know if we need to split the turns - could an opposite player response be taken into account with the possibility of a Reaction?  RT seems to self-contain the turn, if that makes any sense?

 

> Start of combat

- surprise round (if required)

- roll initiative

 

No problem in my mind here, good solid start to a Turn.

 

> Combat phase

- declare extended action (in order of initiative) - some consideration was given to higher rank characters getting more than one action here

- resolve extended actions (in order of initiative, but opposed actions happened together - i.e. offensive and defensive actions would go off together)

 

I roll onto proposed changes for Extended Actions below.

 

- resolve movement and attacks (in order of initiative)

 

This was what fed my comments on the Turn/Action/Reaction

 

- resolve any end of phase effects (timers ticking down, new targets arriving, etc)

 

Again, no worries here, looks like a straightforward GM tidy.

 

A knight declared shield facing when one of the following things happened (and kept that shield facing for the remainder of the turn):

- a surprise turn was announced (before the ambush started)

- an augury scan was directed against them

- they were first subject to an attack in the turn

 

Like this very much, good mechanic.

 

My proposed changes to the Action List, since in RT, the ship combat seem to give up to two basic orders, Fire and Move (compulsory actions, is that right?) and then a PC/Character gets to do the Extended Action.  This is helped with a little knowledge of Battlefleet Gothic

 

Players have Two Actions/Options per Turn, and One Reaction.  The Shield direction is always active, and declared as part of the Warsuit's systems.  On top of this are several "Free" actions permitted by Manifold Properties (Wargear) and Pilot Talents.

 

Primary Combat Actions:

 

- Lock On (Aim)

- Reload Weapons (Reload)

- Brace (Harden systems/stance against impacts, but has penalties to next shooting/mobility)

- Increase Speed/Decrease Speed (All speeds have a bracket, like a set of gears, this is a war engine, not a hatchback).

- Maul - the RT hit and run action, essentially close combat (No change)

- Defend - against mauling (No change)

- System-specific action - (Use a skill, a specific item, like Ready or Use)

- Combine Fire - (Must be stationary, fire all Primary Weapons OR Secondary Weapons at a target.  Hard penalties for next turn)

 

The Secondary actions are a little more esoteric and need more refining by other brains...

 

Secondary Combat Actions:

 

- Augury scan (general) - detect hidden hazards, etc (Possibly Free Action)

- Augury scan (focussed) - determine shield facings, knight components (Half Action?)

- Aid the Machine - bonus to passive movement and detection

- Beseech the Machine - temporarily improve [morale] rating by 1d5 per degree of success, not cumultive with itself

- Goad the Machine - reduce [morale] damage from hits this turn

- Emergency repairs (general) - repair one damaged (but not destroyed) component in 1d5 rounds, less one round per degree of success

- Emergency repairs (firefighting) - deal with ongoing damage from some critical hits (particularly from melta weapons)

- Hail the enemy - to talk, intimidate, etc

- Jam communications/sensors (Half Action?)

 

Pilot Talents: 

 

- Knight Master - 'put your backs into it' from RT, bonuses that only applied if you had two or more extended actions to use from being a high rank.

 

Weapons:

 

These can be wrangled a little bit more later, but I had an idea about Turret Rating.

 

- Point Defence Rating - Defensive property against missiles (PDC - Point Defence Cannons)

 

Movement:

 

A Warsuit has four Speeds from Stationary:

 

- Walking Speed (useful for holding formation, allows most weapons, uses less power draw)

- Striding Speed (General purpose combat speed for shooting and stomping)

- Assault/Closing Speed (Charge, heavy locomotion power draw and CCW prevents shooting, except PDC)

- Flank Speed (Running, heavy power draw, no guns besides PDC)

 

Those are a few things that bubbled into my head.  Feel free to hammer them out.