Design Journal IV: War!

For the other parts of this series, jump to:

PART I  Looking at Fate from the inside out
PART II  Geography and Politics
PART III  Markets and Flexible Economy in Fate

So one of the things that must be addressed in a game of large scale, sweeping and generational politics is war.  As Clausewitz observed, "War is merely the continuation of politics by other means."
But as I am using Fate, and as I don't want to make a war-game, war needs to serve a narrative purpose rather than being a tactical exercise.  I need to provide enough of the right kind of details to give verisimilitude to the process for the benefit of the story, but the main focus should be why what is done matters to the characters of the story. The question here, is who is the character?

Since the overall idea is to make a dynastic, generational political game, the characters will be houses, and the elements that support them.  So in doing war, I'm using the Bronze rule of Fate to make fractal armies.  These will be the characters for making war.

RAISING ARMIES

In my experience, players with armies tend to make war the default solution to political games.  The problem, is this undercuts the potential for extended and dramatic interplay of every other kind. Besides, while the history of humanity is fraught with massive bloodshed, humanity also grows weary of the destruction.  War is also expensive to begin, and expensive to maintain, making it an enterprise that is not to be taken lightly.  All this needs to be reflected in the game.  War needs to be an option on the table, but one that is not preferable till other options have been tested and failed.
The primary characters are the houses, and the countries that support them.  An army then, should be like a supporting character for the most part, and in some cases like mobs of mooks.  So raising an army is essentially an overcome action for the house that raises it.  The narrative issues need to map to the real world issues of a need for men to fight, equipment to arm them, and money to pay them to risk their lives.  Each of these needs to be addressed in order to raise an army.  That then seems to be a multi stage overcome action, or in Fate terms, a challenge; three successes raises your army.

This implies some ways in which resources have to work for the game.  Resources in Fate core, is a single skill.  For this game, there needs to be more granularity, accounting for population, material resources, and money.  Will have to come back to that later, I think...

So another consideration, is under this model, what is an army?  Does it amount to a descriptive aspect and a trouble aspect, with a skill for war, making it an extra?  Or is it a stunt based on the Warfare approach?  What is a general, or a specialist unit, like sappers?  Aspect? Stunt? Skill?  I think I am going to take a leaf from the Atomic Robo page on this one, and make a standard build model to make larger scale things like armies, fleets, or castles, and individual elements like generals or champions will be stunts, perhaps stunts that grant skills not otherwise available.
From the FATE SRD ("This Means War"):  When activated, a unit can move one zone for free, as long as there isn’t an obstacle in the destination zone, such as an enemy unit or obstructing terrain. It can also take one action—overcome, attack, or create an advantage, detailed below.

If the unit has a leader attached to it, the leader may give up their action to give the unit a second action. A player can also spend a fate point to give one of their units without a leader a second action.

Regardless, no unit can take the same action twice in a turn, and attacking always ends a player’s turn.

From the FATE SRD ("Squad Based Action"):  In order to make a squad skill roll or use a squad stunt, one player must decide to give up his personal action to rally the group.

If he’s successful in directing the squad, the difficulty of the task drops by 1 for each additional squadmate who sacrifices their next action to the new goal, as the group turns all its attention to accomplishing the goal. In addition to reducing the difficulty, the success or failure of the roll is carried across the whole unit...

To run a great squad combat, use Operations rolls to move directly to the heart of the action... get the squad to develop a plan of attack and roll Operations as an Overcome with a difficulty appropriate to the target to see how things turn out.

If they are successful, the players should narrate one good outcome for every shift above the target. If they fail, the GM will narrate one negative outcome for every shift below the target.

Essential Elements for Stable Civilizations: Stress Writ Large

See HERE for a bit more discussion on the real basis of the game mechanic.

In order for a society to continue to exist, it must first and foremost have unity of it's members.  If the elements of unity unravel, the society cannot continue no matter how large it's armies or how robust it's production capability.  This seems right off like a stress or condition track in Fate terms.  Mechanically, the following things must exist, must be capable of being eroded, and in doing so, must make the society weaker as they are lost.  Those basic elements of societal unity are:

1) Language
2) Race
3) Religion (or Worldview)
4) Culture
5) Social Structure
6) Strong Government

 Now these things in real terms fall on a continuum.  At what point in real life, does a society of 10,000 begin to fall apart because they can't communicate in the same language?  That is hard to say, and likely depends on many other factors.  As such, each of these elements is part of a condition track that folds into a stat kind of like a skill or approach similar to Resources or Contacts, that dovetails with stress.  Either the element is strong (and thus rated with a +1) or it is weak (rated with a +0).  The total of these conditions is the society Unity.