Interview about Lion Rampant Adventures
Hello, Gianluca, You recently introduced a new product called Rampant Adventures 1 Viking Blood Feud. Words like Viking, Blood Feud, Rampant, and Adventures are sure to grab anyone's attention, but what caught my eye was the number One. When there's a number, there could be more. Wargamers are ungrateful people, you know? And even if you barely announce book one, they immediately want to know what's coming next. So, what’s coming next?
Yes, it is meant to be the first of a series, with around one publication per year, and we have a few ideas in mind, with at least one more regarding Vikings We established a very good relationship with the Snorrastofa Cultural and research Center, in Iceland, which studies Icelandic sagas and is endorsing our publications. But we are also considering Renaissance Italy, thanks to the collaboration with the town and castle of Gradara (near Rimini). We will prioritise collaborations with heritage bodies, although that is not strictly necessary. So, if there is a museum or historical site out there that would like to publish a wargames supplement with us, do get in touch!
But back to Viking Blood Feud. Don't get me wrong, I understand that Vikings sell well, but there are a billion Viking games on the market. So what's so special about this one that we should buy it?
What is special about this is the fact that it is directly based on actual Icelandic family sagas, history, culture, and society, which it gamifies through wargaming their blood feuds. The first half of the supplement is a history book and the second half a wargame supplement.There is more history in this supplement than in our previous ones. If you would like to know more about Viking Iceland, this supplement is a very short, very readable, and sharp introduction to it and about its sagas, followed by wargaming ideas on how to recreate them on your tabletop. Essentially it will enable you to make your own sagas in the mold of historical ones! And, as usual, our scenarios are based on passages from actual sagas, which we quoted.
In your Facebook post, you wrote that part of the game involves de-escalating blood feuds or negotiating. Isn't that counterproductive? It's an addition to the war game we use as an excuse to play with toy soldiers. And suddenly we're not resolving conflicts by shuffling painted Vikings around on the table?
Will it work like non-combat encounters, or if you prefer, skill encounters in RPGs such as DND?
Following your previous question, this book is different from usual Viking games because it is not about pillaging and raiding, or conquest, but about quarrels between neighboring landowners and chieftains, and their networks of alliances, which is the core of Icelandic ‘family sagas’. These sagas were essentially something in between soap operas and legal dramas, plus violence, but the latter was part of the drama, and not the whole of it. We wanted to recreate the flavor of literary works and of the society that produced them on your tabletop. There was no king or permanent government in Viking Iceland, only assemblies of its landowning farmers that made and enforced rules by peer pressure. You won a quarrel by playing by or gaming those rules, and not just by defeating your enemy on the battlefield. No landowner was strong enough in its period to ignore peer pressure and the nature of the subarctic environment meant that they needed their neighbours to work with them, to survive.
So what can we expect in terms of mechanics, if you can be a little open about it? Seems they are build about narrativism and storytelling, right?
With this supplement you can play individual scenarios as stand alone ones: a quick quarrel that provokes a fight. But saga writers were great storytellers, and our primary objective was to create sagas through wargaming. There are rules to flesh out your characters, social relations, and the reason for the feud, and there are feud actions to decide between one battle and the next, which is essentially how you play ongoing conflict to the rest of Icelandic society. And neighbours do not like overbearing and overtly violent people, or overambitious ones. Therefore, depending on the situation, between a battle and the next you will be able to choose a stance in the feud, to defend, escalate, sue in the assembly, mediate, provoke. After each battle and before the next, each player (or group of players in multiplayer campaigns representing alliances) secretly selects one of those options, and then they are revealed and matched on a table. The results give temporary advantages and help decide the next scenario of the campaign. And then there are special glory points based on leaders’ behaviours.
How will you enrich the basic rules of Lion Rampant? Most of your previous supplements not only offered setting mechanics, but also enriched the core game engine mechanics themselves. For example Norman horse tactics, or Holy character unit.
There are setting mechanics too, such as rules for building your warband based on the society of Viking Iceland and how conflicts were fought there, plus optional rules based on resources, beliefs, and technology. Icelanders had horses but did not fight on horseback, for example, or in the sagas they used improvised armor and weapons. There are also new terrain rules: the beauty of Iceland is its magnificent landscape…active lava fields anyone?
In the Facebook post you mentioned, you wrote that half of it will be historical background, which is a big plus for me. But even so. Do you recommend (re)reading the Edda? Or something else? Watching Vikings (ahem)?
The supplement is based on a specific genre of Icelandic sagas called family sagas (which is different from legendary sagas, which are about myths and legends, or kings’ sagas, which are about kings, mostly Norwegian ones like Harald Hardrada). Family sagas are about semi-historical, relatively ordinary but larger than life individuals. The supplement includes a short description of the genre, and summaries of the most famous family sagas, such as Niál Saga, Laxdaela Saga, Eyrbyggja Saga,and Grettis Saga, so you can immerse yourself in their narratives. If you like the summaries, I suggest you pick them up. They are collected together in a volume called The Sagas of the Icelanders. My favourite is Grettis saga, which is famous about encounters with revenants, but Grettir was also berserkers’ slayer. There are no revenants in our supplement, but there are berserkers.
How many models you need for warband in family saga? Still around 36 which is average for Lion Rampant?
You can, but in the book we also suggest using reduced model units like in Dragon Rampant. Battles in Iceland were very small, but they could involve up to around 100 people per side, in that period, and at the siege of Nial Farm, when he ended up being burned inside his house.
 |
| Not Exactly Lion Rampant, not entirely Iceland... |
Are the rules strictly specific to, say, tribal organization and strictly to Viking culture, or can they be applied to other historical and period settings?
The supplement is very much about Icelandic sagas, and they are meant for you to immerse yourself into them and create new verisimilar sagas on your tabletop through wargaming. Iceland was considered the cultural powerhouse of the Viking world, so you could reasonably play the supplement for similar quarrels set in other parts of the Viking world. I would not set it somewhere else, but that is a personal preference, because I am quite picky when it comes to history, but players can do what they wish, modify and transform this as they please.
For example, my name is inspired by Bedřich Smetana's opera "Dalibor," which deals with a dispute among the lower nobility in Bohemia. My namesake ended up locked in a tower at Prague Castle, where he earned his keep by playing the violin. According to legend, of course.
Back to the question, can the rules be applied, for example, to Slavic or Germanic tribal structures, or to early medieval law?
I should have a look at the opera, it sounds very interesting! I would use Viking Blood Feud supplement only for Viking age Scandinavia and Iceland, stopping in the eleventh century. Our feud actions are really based on the values and cultural features of the sagas of the Icelanders. I do not know that much about other Germanic areas or slavic societies, but, for example, the same rules for blood feuds would not apply to medieval Italy, which is an area that I know quite well.
 |
| Gradara Castle Playable Diorama by Oshiro Terrain |
We have notice awesome Gradara playable diorama you created in Gradara castle. Can you tell us something about it? Does it mean anyone can rent a space there and play?
The Gradara playable diorama was built out of the frustration of seeing so many nice dioramas in museums and heritage sites that are placed behind glass. You can see them, but you cannot touch them or play with them. I always thought: why not create one like that but which can be used for wargames and role-playing games? I was already collaborating with Gradara, and they liked the idea, which fitted with the town regeneration projects that they were developing at that time. Gradara is a jewel of a medieval town next to Rimini with a splendid walled burgh, a splendid castle, and a very creative administration with a very long history of connections with gaming. They launched one of the first games conventions in Italy in the 1990s, called Gradara Ludels, which took place in September. The playable diorama is now a permanent installation inside the castle, which you can book for free, using it for any game that you like. During Gradara Ludens this September, games were played on it that were based on local history, while others were based on the Lord of the Rings! We are doing the finishing touches on the installation, and I believe that it will have its own webpage with all necessary information too. And, while you can play any scenario or genre of wargame you want on it, we are also preparing some Lion Rampant scenarios based on events from local history.
Thank you for your time, good luck with the product, we are looking forward to it.
Komentáře
Okomentovat