Burden of Command - WWII Tactical Leadership RPG

[Silver]

@RockPaperShotgun Burden of Command is a WWII tactical leadership RPG which is due to release sometime in 2018.

World War II Tactical Leadership RPG -- Coming 2018
More information at: http://www.burdenofcommand.com

[...]

Project Lead Luke Hughes is keen to stress that there are no ‘right' answers on the BoC battlefield and that issuing an order is not the same thing as executing an action. When I asked him to explain how the game will go about modelling the chaos of war, he said this:

"The game is designed such that everything that happens in BoC happens on a probability curve. Which is a fancy way of saying that while normally for any given ‘event' (firing an MG, giving an order, rallying the men, making a move or an interactive fiction decision, etc.) what you expect to happen happens, the dice are always being rolled for a disaster (e.g., the gun jams, the men panic, an order gets lost) or an unexpected success (critical hit, a squad auto rallies...). Further, as a battle progresses and the natural friction of war occurs through suppression and injury, command and control will start to break down. That is, suppressed units will tend to ignore orders, or not receive them, or implement them only minimally (crawl towards the MG rather than run).

Put one last way, while in a typical tactical game like XCOM we're all used to the chance to hit being probabilistic, in BoC even the chance to follow an order is probabilistic. In the face of this pervasive chaos it is the leaders who play a critical role in overcoming the chaos and turning your intentions into actions. Chaos is central to the battlefield and BoC, and leadership is its central anecdote.The good news about chaos is that it tends to create good stories (‘There I was all my units suppressed, no hope, then out of the blue Lt Stern stood up in the face of fire, rallied his men and overcame the enemy position. Sadly he was wounded in the final assault.")"

More information.

 

[luj1]

Nice idea + sweet 2D art.

 

[Capt. Huggy Face]

Sounds nifty. I can't wishlist it yet, so I hope to see it again on the Watch.

 

[Darkheart]

Same here! This peeked my interest.
Hex-based turn-based tactics with a copious pinch of RPG? Sounds good to me!

 

[Pongo]

That really does look quite interesting. Not a common setting for an RPG, and the leadership angle looks like it might be well handled. And I like the sound of those probability curves, should throw some entertainingly unexpected results into the mix. I'll definitely keep an eye on this one.

 

[screeg]

in BoC even the chance to follow an order is probabilistic

Uh, sure, as long as the same rules apply to the enemy.

Then again, if you go to far with the whole "chaos" aspect, this would be utterly unfun to actually play. Who wants to give five orders and on the first turn and one isn't carried out, then on the second turn two, etc. It sounds interesting but would be very hard to execute.

 

[Carnifex]

I totally get a Twilight 2000 vibe off this one, so I'll likely get it. This genre is seriously underrepresented.

 

[ChienAboyeur]

Binary options each time. RPGness all the way down.