"April 21, 1918: scenario question" Topic

apologies to the ww2 guys for the time-travel-cross-post, but would like your more "modern" take on the issue as well…

to commemorate the 90th anniversary, i plan to run a game of the engagement that saw the death of M.vRichthofen.

since it is "just a game", i'm toying with victory conditions. the title of the scenario ("who shot down the red baron?") will play a large role: i figure the (british) player who downs MvR to have logged a victory. (rather than painting a target on one of the players, i intend to fly the red plane myself --everyone always likes to kill the designer/gm anyway!) for the germans, i thought about victory going to the player with the highest kills (or damage) inflicted on the british --though automatic defeat would come with the downing of MvR (so they can't abandon him/me to the wolves).

…or should i make it "just for laughs": have ALL the players be allied (allowing them to choose their aircraft: camel, spad, se5, doghouse…) and make it a free-for-all with everyone after the red baron ( which may result in a few "friendly fire" incidents…) ? if done this way, should i have the players: pick a historical pilot, or build a set of skills with a given number of points, or have all pilots be of similar ability (to make it "fair")? or maybe just draw a pilot (with predetermined stats) out of a hat?

what type of game would you, as a player, find fun? what would you devote three hours of a monday evening to?

to clarify: my gaming mantra is that "if it's not fun, why play?". "fun" doesn't have to mean "silly", of course --for myself, a gaming challenge is "fun" no matter the seriousness.

My suggestion would be to have the Germans led by MvRichthofen against the allied pilots and assign the Germans some other aces as he did fly with many other aces at this time period. The Allies should out-number the Germans by a 2-1 or slightly lower margin to make it a "target rich environment" for the German players, and a problematic situation for the allies. I wouldn't give the allies many aces – or if you do give them aces – give them relatively low abilities for aces. The Germans should have good ace qualities for a couple of pilots in addition to MvR himself (who wasn't as good at this time frame because of his severe head wound earlier).

What rules set do you intend to use for the game?

"…assign the Germans some other aces…"

if i go "realistic" i will have a roster of pilots in vR's jasta as well as the other jasta (i forget the number at the moment…) that was involved that day for the players to choose from. same with the british.

"What rules set do you intend to use for the game?"

like any gamer who imagines that he/she can build a better mousetrap, i'll be using my own! (a link to them can be found in the "biplanes" forum.)

I've a feeling the other Jasta was J5 not sure why I think that though.

I'd do a fun game set-up a big dogfight – you play MvR and see if your team can protect you from the allies.

so that MvR can't just run, i'd stipulate that he MUST shoot down a british plane before trying to exit the engagement. one of the accounts i have (a dubious source, but i'll grab any straw that supports my position!) has MvR failing in an attack on a recon flight just before engaging Brown & Co., and therefore upset and itching to get his 81st cup. all that "inside his head" stuff is, of course, pure b.s., but it works in the scenario to keep him on the board instead of fleeing (which also makes it harder to shoot him down: the hunted beast that turns and fights cannot be stalked so casually…).

I like the idea of having the target run by the referee.

For my own homebrew wwii rules, I often run a "practice game" pitting every player as a hurricane or spit, with a bomber formation of He-111's to attack. Victory is measured by who downs the most bombers. It gets the players used to the rules without offending anyone right out of the chute. There is plenty of time for that later!