For Glory!!! The Characters...

There will be 12 characters included in the base game and each one is built using the same rules as those found in the BoL RPG with a few modifications to make them useful in a board game context. The practical upshot of this is that you can move characters from the RPG to the board game and back using a simple conversion which will be included in the For Glory!!! rulebook. So if you don't like any of the characters presented, it will be easy enough to customize one for yourself.

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The cards themselves are fairly easy to read. We have a character descriptor, which gives you a general idea of where the character comes from and what they do, going down the left side. The Origin, found in the top left corner, tells you where the character starts out on the map. This might be a very specific hex or include a large number of options based on the character in question.

To the right of the Origin, we have an indicator of the Hero's sex. Why? Because it matters in Sword & Sorcery fiction and, as a result, does so in the game as well, with a number of cards favoring one sex or the other.  

To the right of that are the Hero Resources: Life Blood, Hero Points and Arcane Power. Life Blood in particular has been reduced and abstracted in the board game to speed up play and reduce the swinginess of combat. So instead of 10+STR, For Glory!!! uses 2+STR. This means the average character will take two hits in combat before going down, but as the whole combat mechanic has been boiled down into something much simpler that will speed up play for the board game medium (combat using the base BoL rules would mean horribly unacceptable player downtime), this is actually plenty.

Hero Points and Arcane Power are built the same way as the RPG, with 5 starting Hero Points for  every character and a few characters who take a 2 point reduction in order to score extra Boons without taking an additional Flaw, and AP built on the same 10+MIN formula as the RPG. Why not abstract that down as well? We'll discuss that in a later post.

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In the middle, we have the Heroic Stats: Attributes in column 1, Combat Abilities in Column 2 and Careers in Column 3. They work in exactly the same way as they do in their RPG counterpart: roll 2D6+ATT+Combat Ability or Career. Some of the careers are rated at 0, but they still have an affect on the game, as certain cards are useful for or can be ignored by certain careers regardless of actual score.

Below the Heroic Stats, we have the Boons & Flaws. These are advantages and disadvantages drawn from the character's land of origin as found in the RPG, but modified to make sense for the board game. There will be a conversion list in the back of the For Glory!!! rulebook  for each one, so as before, moving from the RPG to the board game will be a snap.

Finally, there are the Trappings, or equipment, that the Hero starts off with. These are drawn from the Equipment or Reward Decks as appropriate.

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And as a fun little sneak peek at the tone of the rules, here is an excerpt from the rulebook on choosing characters, as related by the official For Glory!!! Rules-Skald...

Each player picks a hero to play. In the case of conflict over a particular hero, those involved should engage in some test of might, preferably combat (although not to the death, as this results in fewer players). The one who beats the rest into submission takes the hero card.

Alternately, those too craven to engage in true tests of a heroic caliber can simply award the hero to the player who achieves the highest result on 1 die (rerolling ties) or just randomly deal one hero card face down to each player and then wallow in timorous ignominy.

The Rules-Skald will be answering any Q&A after the game releases, so best not to annoy him with questions that are clearly meant to abuse the spirit of the rules. He will correct you in as offensive a manner as possible and then advise your friends on the best way to deal with rules weasels.

That covers the main components. Next time I'll talk a bit about how the game plays...