This is an after action report of the game that we played using the mentioned Gladiator rules and ideas.
Four of our club members showed up for the evening's game and we sat down to the table, which was set up like an arena from the Roman Gladiator games. The tablemat is made from heavy vinyl sheet material that is used in the production of billboard advertisements. (Very thick vinyl). This surface will hold acrylic house paint very well and the surface is painted a sandy tan and yellow to represent the floor of the arena. I made a hex stamp pattern from soft foam material and using a paint roller literally stamped a hex pattern over the entire surface. The buildings around the table edge came from our Circus Maximus game table. There is an emperor's box seat with columnar porch and gardens and several animal pens and entrances to the floor of the fighting arena.
Ready
With the setting ready for action I taught the rules to the members of the club that were very eager to play. I distributed 24 gold coins (Carnival Supply house) to each player as a beginning bank account. These coins are shiny gold plastic replicas of ancient roman coin. You could use poker chips but the coins were an interesting manipulative that added interest and flair to the setting. Our first stop was the slave market. Here the players purchased gladiators in 54mm scale from the collection of Louis Marx Ben Hur figures.
Each player was given a character card from a set of thirty named roman slaves for each slave that they purchased. Slaves were bought at the rate of three gold coins each. An initial investment of training and conditioning was allowed and each player would pay the bank one gold coin for every added strength point that the player wanted his slave to have. Slaves started at default six strength points and they could be trained and conditioned to a maximum of twelve points- at a cost of six additional gold coins.
Beginning records of slaves purchased are lost to the written record. What follows is where players ended up at the end of the evening's battles.
Doug Martin:
| Slave Name | Strength | W/L record | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Licinius | 9 | 4/2 | - |
| Nepos | 8 | 0/1 | - |
| Julius | 9 | 1/1 | - |
| Maximus | 9 | 1 / 2 | Was "decked" by the doubles rule. |
| Aulus | 9 | 2/4 | - |
| Maccius | 12 | 1/0 | - |
| Crispus Afer | 10 | 4/2 | Killed an opponent/ was subsequently killed in another match. |
Doug proved to be the ruthless captain of a very tough gladiatorial school. He favors an augmented fighter with conditioning of at least 9 strength. His current bank account totals 107 GC. Investigations into fixed gambling are to be pursued in the Senate. Doug was the evening's big winner and reigning champion of the arena.
Jon Mark Haworth
| Slave Name | Strength | W/L record | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Falernus | 9 | 6/3 | A veteran of the Arena. +1 AP. He has killed two opponents. |
| Caius | 8 | 2/4 | All 4 losses are to a gladiator named Paterculus! This fighter has been netted and lived through being "decked". |
| Maro | 12 | 0/0 | Bought late in the evening. Record of his first fight is scant. |
Haworth proved to be a canny opponent. His school of gladiators was always trained, sometimes very well. He came in second in the cash prizes category scoring 82 GC at the end of the game.
Ken Van Pelt
| Slave Name | Strength | W/L record | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Paterculus | 6 | 7/2 | The crowd favorite! Four wins against the gladiator Caius. Fought a Retarius who lost his net. Caius in one match had a broken sword. Paterculus is unfortunately tied to a gambling dispute and perhaps a fixed fight! His opponent deliberately threw the fight to win an Unscrupulous gambler a fortune. |
| Lucanus | 12 | 2/0 | - |
Ken had a rough financial start in the game and lost nearly all of his gold. Gambling back his fortune he came in third for the cash amount of 66 GC at the end of the game. Several gladiators he owned previously had to be sold back to the slave market to pay entry fees for the fights he participated in.
John Cordry
| Slave Name | Strength | W/L record | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Valerius | 9 | Killed | - |
| Annius | 9 | 2/2 | Killed by Crispus Afer |
John faced financial devastation much the way Ken Van Pelt did; however, he did not bounce back. The current record shows him broke and with two dead gladiators. Look for John's gladiatorial school to be sold as warehouse space.
Here are the rest of the Slave fighters that at one time or another over the course of the game participated in the fights but were sold to the slave market or killed.
- Dulius ST 6 Killed
Porcius ST 6 0/1
Quintus ST 6 0/1
Icilius ST 7 2/0 Played after the game with my brother to show him the mechanics of the game and how to play Gladiators.
Septimus ST 9 0/1
Decimus ST 10 0/1 Killed.
The fight bill that I laid out prior to the game became irrelevant once the players had arrived. It made much more sense that with four players we would each fight once against each person creating three fights in each category. We followed the categories from light to heavy with a retarius fight in between each weight class.
The gladiator equipment cards were made on a label maker on my computer. I created an even number of each category and the cards were used to mark the character card with the appropriate equipment. These were even used as currency in times of need as they could be sold back to the bank for GC.
Here is a description of how each combat went as far as procedure. Players decide who fights against who (we used a die roll - two high die rolls fight each other, two low die rolls fight). Each player picks a slave from his current property. That player's slave character card is placed face up on the playing surface. Each player chooses or purchases the appropriate equipment card and places this face up on the character card. In this way a slave can be equipped with any sort of armor and equipment, and fight in any combination of combats. Then each player takes GC from his pile equal to the entry fee or ante for the combat. The bank supplies a matching amount. For example if the fight entry fee is two GC, then each player puts in two GC for a total of four GC. Then the bank matches this amount to bring the total to eight GC prize money for the fight. Next, each player decides if he wants to wager on his own or another fighter. Bets are stacked in coin on the slave character card you are betting on. The bank backs all bets. If you win you get one for one from the bank. If you lose the bank gets the coins.
When all of this is set up, each player rolls a six-sided die and counts the total roll of the two players. This is the distance between the two fighters in hexes on the arena floor. The next roll is for initiative and then the game proceeds as under the "We Who Are About To Die…" rules. We pushed the death score in strength to negative six ( -6) in an effort to keep gladiators alive. We also used the thumbs up, thumbs down, rule to decide if the incapacitated gladiator was killed or spared. Interestingly enough we all voted to spare gladiators more times than not. I think the notion of I'll spare your guy if you spare mine was in force. Next time we will have a chart for the emperor's choice in the matter. I am thinking it should be a two die six roll versus the score of seven. Modifiers could be added one point for every victorious fight your gladiator has scored. In this way a skilled gladiator with five or more victories is guaranteed to be spared. A roll of snake eyes would be a certain death regardless of past victories.
After the fight the bets are collected and then a saving roll would be rolled to gain back strength points. We considered this to be gaining back fatigue in addition to the bandaging of actual wounds. Each gladiator in the fight and all of those on the bench would get a one die six roll after each combat to gain back strength points. In this way a gladiator could be "good to go" for the next fight or may be slightly injured and weak for the next fight. This made the decision process interesting, as you would keep gladiators benched for a fight in hopes that they would be in top form for a later card. No gladiator could get back more than his starting strength and augmenting a gladiator with GC after the initial purchase was considered not allowed.
That's how the evening was played out. A great game was played considering that none of the players had seen the rules before. The gladiator rules were at just the right complexity level to create a sense of managing multiple characters. The games were fast and furious enough to keep interest and we developed a sense of the bigger picture by buying and selling more than one player character for the game. I recommend very highly the rules "We Who Are About To Die Demand A Recount."
They are published in Issue 67 of SAGA magazine (available on MagWeb.com) and used here by permission of Terry Gore.
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