Hornblower: Red-Green Vote
We have this little thing we do. One of us says “y’know, I’d really like a game for genre/movie/concept X” and then someone else says “hmm, well, I’ve never even considered making a game for this idea, but how about this brand new idea I just thought of entirely off the top of my head in the time it took you to ask that question? And is there any more coffee?”
Today’s off-the-cuff project: a role-playing game for the Ship-of-the-Line era. Horatio Hornblower, Master & Commander — that kind of thing.
The first thing that jumped out at us was the perennial problem of when military organization meets role-playing: if one of the players is the commanding officer, theoretically he just tells the other players what to do and they do it. It’s a role-playing buzz kill.
Let’s say someone is playing the captain and the other players are playing the other major officers of the ship. First off, let’s emphasize rather than ignore: there _is_ a power imbalance between the character who is the captain and all the other officer characters. The captain is the absolute law on the ship. How that gets played out is an interesting part of the genre, so instead of sweeping it under the rug we are going to include mechanics that highlight that difference.
When the captain issues a controversial order, like to flog the popular cabin boy who was caught stealing or to cut grog rations to keep the crew alert for a coming battle, the other officers don’t get to openly disagree or countermand the captain’s orders (unless they are jumping straight to mutiny). But privately they are either pleased or displeased with what the captain decides. They may think he’s a tyrant, an incompetent leader, whatever, and that displeasure no matter how well concealed is going to influence the moral of the ship. If the officers are passing on orders they disagree with, that’s going to taint how those orders are received by the sailors beneath them and so on.
Here’s the rules fragment: after the captain issues a major order, each officer places a face down tile that’s green (for approve) or red (for disapprove). That secret vote is tallied up and becomes the new morale of the ship. In effect the officers are sitting in for the ship’s crew at large, and their votes represent the whole crew.
Players aren’t allowed to openly discuss what they are going to vote, except in the context of roleplaying their opinions. The captain is absolutely forbidden from asking the officers what they are going to vote. Because of rigid command structure no officer would normally give his opinion to the captain unless he requested suggestions.
The tricky bit would be for the captain to give the orders he wants, but not lord over his officers so tyrannically that their unspoken opposition undermines the morale of the ship. Then again if he just caters to his crew’s wishes he isn’t really in charge any more.
Questions remain: What’s to discourage everyone from just voting green because that’s what’s best for the whole ship? Different officers could have conflicting agendas, making it impossible for the captain to please everyone all the time.
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“What’s to discourage everyone from just voting green because that’s what’s best for the whole ship? Different officers could have conflicting agendas, making it impossible for the captain to please everyone all the time.”
You might consider extending the loyalty/dissent system further along the ship hierarchy. Non-captain PCs will also have subordinates, who are likewise able to pass judgment on those PCs’ actions. Defining a set of “clients” who are responsible to the officers also could help develop the different niches the various officers occupy in the ship hierarchy. Ie, the officer in charge of disbursing funds is going to have different interests than the one in charge of keeping the ship stocked. And the officers in command of a bunch of green conscripts is going to be under different pressure than one commanding a unit of crack veterans. This adds another layer of complexity to the political simulation, as smaller units of the whole crew are differentiated by the system.
Ship of the line, age of sail naval stories happen to be one of my favorite adventure genres so I’ve off and on tossed around ideas for running a game about it. As Ben said, we’ve played Poison’d which has a lot of great elements for any ship game but in general it encourages a different genre. To me, this genre is about leadership, loyalty, patriotism, fellowship and survival on the high seas. It’s not about mutiny, betrayal and greed except as they threaten the ideal. I’m interested in exploring the tension between naval obedience, loyalty to the Crown, belief in the Captain, duty your job and the men under you and basic human needs. The fluctuating morale of the crew and commanders then affect the other mechanics of the game which could include many traditional elements like sailing, fighting, espionage etc.
Player decision making often focuses on choosing something (anything!) for your character to do which is not as central in this genre because you know you’re going to do what the captain says. The players need other choices to make otherwise the game can degenerate into players just following orders, taking away their decision making power (and boring them to tears).
Some red-green vote scenes might have a lot of roleplaying and discussion among the senior officers while others might just be a straight vote because it’s not always appropriate to have a discussion. Either way, the ship’s morale changes as a direct result of player action.
“Heya Ben, have you tried Poison’d yet? I’d love to run it for you some time. It’s pirates, rather than military, but the theme of the captains authority is central to the game.”
Hey Tony! Yep, we played a session of Poison’d. It’s good stuff, but since it’s all about overthrowing the captain or constantly vying for authority it encourages a lot of things that go opposite of a “the captain is the captain no matter what, mutiny is the greatest sin” game. Like the support the captain mechanic you mentioned — it’s really slanted to encourage the subordinates to take selfish benefit for themselves, so you’d have to slant things the other direction to reflect a law-abiding ship where that’s not the norm.
For the Hornblower idea we were thinking more along the lines that disapproving the captain usually _did_ hurt you and the entire ship, since it meant things weren’t working as well, but you might do it because you were opposed to what the captain was doing (tactically or just because of roleplaying issues, like flogging someone you didn’t think should be flogged).
Heya Ben, have you tried Poison’d yet? I’d love to run it for you some time. It’s pirates, rather than military, but the theme of the captains authority is central to the game. There are a couple of gems in there that you might find interesting (and that have shades of the hornblower idea you’re playing with here).
In Poison’d, in a fight or battle, the captain can hand out his/her dice to other crewmen. This is asking for help, giving orders, and so on. Each player who gets a die, adds another one to it. They may then roll those dice on the captain’s side. However, they can also choose to withhold their aid and gain resources instead. It plays captainship as an authority thing, but also a trust thing.
And then there’s how you become captain. Getting elected captain is as likely as not to involve a bargain. When you strike a bargain, you give your soul in hock to the person you bargained with. Until the bargain is somehow fulfilled, they can then choose to withhold that many dice in a conflict (one time only, and thus dissolving the bargain).
“This does seem like more of an ars ludi post FWIW.”
All ideas from the team (instead of just me) go over here. I’m also using this blog to show early bits of game development that might get into projects. Hornblower is not exactly likely to emerge as a full game, but still…
interesting. (This does seem like more of an ars ludi post FWIW).
Re: the issue of how to keep someone from always voting green – If you find a non-kludgy and effective way to do this, I’d be interested to hear it. The suggestion from Scholz sounds like it could be worth a shot.
To answer your second question, what about having a red vote equal a “get out of jail free” card of sorts. So if a Lieuie is worried about the situation, he can play a red card. Then if the crew starts to mutiny, he gets a special chance to quell the riot because he played the Red card (crew sympathy). Or, by playing a red card when the Captain decides to broadside the superior ship, means that the officer can reroll a defense roll (or whatever mechanic you have), or escape into the other ship’s blindspot, because he kept the ship “slightly at angle” to the opponent, thus giving them an out, in case things didn’t work out.
Of course, when the Red card is played, it becomes public, and the Captain needs to decide what to do. And it there are too many red cards, morale and efficacy drop precipitously. So if everyone “holds” back from the captain’s strategy they are doomed.