Our group's just done a marathon bank holiday session of KAP, covering 491-495, with three major battles, a skirmish and a duel (and only one fatality (me, the highest Glory knight[edit: in the player knight group] at Terrabil, at the hands of two Inspired Gorlois bodyguards) out of 4 knights and a Lady who's converting to Knighthood - we even beat some Berserkers without loss at St Albans!). It occurred to me that there's no mechanic that seems to deal with the leader making an inspiring speech to gee his troops up before the fight. It's a classic of literature, and motivational speeches get improved performances out of sports and sales teams and soldiers to this day. Do you think this is a fitting trope for KAP? Do you use some mechanic already in your game? Is it worth noodling a mechanic out for people to riff off of? Is a mechanic to Inspire someone else a good thing to have?

I can see how such a concept might be antithetical to a theme of individual heroism.

Speech triggers a passion roll and hence inspiration?

Speech triggers a passion roll and hence inspiration?

But the Passion roll could be made anyway, whether the speech was given or not, and whether or not the speech was any good (degree of success of an Orate roll). And for Battles, you only get to invoke each relevant passion once (and choosing when to invoke that passion is one of the keys to surviving tough situations). If the speech gave a bonus to the passion it invokes, it would be meaningful (beyond a chance for the speaker to get a tick in their Orate), and would give characters a reason to roll those 'iffy' mid-range passions that give you as much chance of a long term penalty to everything (that'll kill you as sure as, though not as swiftly as, a berserker) and a -1 to the Passion as they do of giving you a +10 on one roll. I'd be inclined towards allowing a "free" roll, with no chance of Melancholy or losing a point in the Passion, or a +5 (10 on a crit Orate), on a suitable Passion roll for Round 1. Neither would 'use up' that Passion for the day.

I recognise that charging lancers already have large advantages against most foes in Round 1, and this is a little bit redundant, but it is more broadly useful.

Perhaps it might even be harder to use (needs a crit Orate to trigger), but rollable by the Eschille or Battle commander every Round.

As GM you are allowed to give modifiers to Passion rolls.
Just having received a really rousing speed would give a +5..

In my mind all those speeches we 'remember' from movies/Shakespeares are 'criticical' Oratory rolls..

So
pre-battle Oratory (which a smart leader would en passion himself on)
Crit: +5 to Loyalty Passions
Success: Allow normal use of Loyalty Passions
Failure: -5 to Loyalty Passion
Fumble: Everybody gives up the fight and goes home.

fg,
Dr Thijs

But the Passion roll could be made anyway, whether the speech was given or not, and whether or not the speech was any good (degree of success of an Orate roll).


Sure about that?

"At other times the player may request a roll, with the
Gamemaster’s approval. Remember that the Gamemaster
has final word on the appropriateness of attempting to use a
passion for inspiration."

We tend to be a bit more harsh about the circumstances where you can activate a Passion, as we have nerfed the downsides of the Passion Roll (the Aging Roll from Shock) quite a bit. Granted, we nerfed the bonus to +5 too, to make it less of a 'I win' -button.

Giving the PKs a 'free' Passion roll, perhaps with a bonus, would be a good idea on a critical. I wouldn't be quite as harsh as Thijs on the Fumble. After all, not even a Fumbled Battle means that you instantly lose the fight. Instead, give like -5 modifier for all Passions for the battle or something. That should do it. :)

I could even entertain something like this:
Critical: Roll a passion at +5, and if successful, it stays active for the whole battle!
Success: Get a 'free' Passion roll.
Failure: Uninspiring speech, no effect. But no harm, either.
Fumble: What a downer. -5 to all Passion rolls in this battle.

But the Passion roll could be made anyway, whether the speech was given or not, and whether or not the speech was any good (degree of success of an Orate roll).


Sure about that?

Most of the time in a Battle, Loyalty (Lord) would apply, and at least in the Saxon-bashing stages, "Hate Saxons" is pretty common... :) but yes, that's a fair point, if there wasn't any particular reason for the participants to be invested in the Battle, a good Orate would be a nice trigger for some sort of Passion roll. Though if the Passion isn't relevant enough to the fight or participants for the players to legitimately request a Passion roll from the ref in the first place, I'm not sure a speech is going to enhance that legitimacy. Of Henry V's two (?)most(?) famous speeches, "once more unto the breach" should tickle Honour or Loyalty (Lord) or Loyalty (Hal), but those would be applicable to following the King into combat anyway; the St Crispin's day speech tugs on Honour, and perhaps obliquely Love (Family), as well as the Loyalties the listeners might have, for inspiration.


We tend to be a bit more harsh about the circumstances where you can activate a Passion, as we have nerfed the downsides of the Passion Roll (the Aging Roll from Shock) quite a bit. Granted, we nerfed the bonus to +5 too, to make it less of a 'I win' -button.
We've dropped the "lose a point in it if you miss it" consequence, because that just makes rolling low or middling Passions a vicious circle (without annual XP and Glory points, any Passion below 20 is only going to dwindle, in all probability if you lose a point on every fail, but only have a 5% chance of a check to increase it), but kept the other consequences of failure (Melancholy for not getting inspired, and Shock for not succeeding at the task you set yourself), along with the full bonuses.


Giving the PKs a 'free' Passion roll, perhaps with a bonus, would be a good idea on a critical. I wouldn't be quite as harsh as Thijs on the Fumble. After all, not even a Fumbled Battle means that you instantly lose the fight. Instead, give like -5 modifier for all Passions for the battle or something. That should do it. :)

I could even entertain something like this:
Critical: Roll a passion at +5, and if successful, it stays active for the whole battle!
Success: Get a 'free' Passion roll.
Failure: Uninspiring speech, no effect. But no harm, either.
Fumble: What a downer. -5 to all Passion rolls in this battle.

That's a nice idea. How about if the Passion at +5 would have to be the one the speaker was appealing to in order for the Impassioned knight to get the benefit, and the speaker should make a Passion roll using the Passion he's directly targetting. So if the subject of the speech is "We're going to kick those Saxons heads in cos we hates 'em!" only people rolling "Hate (Saxons)" would get the +5 and the persistence. Maybe the war leader could roll as many Passions as he wants to trigger (running the risks of failure on each but only getting the Inspiration benefit from one) in order to have a wider selection of Passions to roll for persistent effects. So if the leader succeeded in his Hate (Saxons) and Love (Family) Passion rolls, he'd roll his Orate at +10 (or whatever your table uses), and if that were a Crit, his followers could roll Hate (Saxons) or Love (Family) at +5, with the effect persisting for the whole battle, or any other personally relevant Passion without it counting as their one use of that Passion per day. If the Orate only succeeded, perhaps the "freebie" would only apply to the use of the Passions the Orator invoked.

I think I would allow the bonus to be only on the Passions invoked in the speech. You don't get inspired about your family if the speech is only taking about how much we hates them smelly Saxons.

I am also backtracking a bit on the whole battle duration passions... We used those back in the day and given that everyone had Loyalty (Pendragon) at 20 or so, it made battles quite one-sided... especially as those were 'Arthur wins' -battles of early 510s.

How about this:

Critical: Roll a speech-invoked Passion at +5 for free right now, and you have that +5 for other uses later in the battle, too.
Success: Roll a speech-invoked Passion at +5 for free right now.
Failure: No effect.
Fumble: All passion rolls are at -5 for this battle.

In this case, a leader who tugs at heart-strings with a critical Orate of how the knight's loved ones will suffer if those dastardly Saxons manage to invade, and reminding of past treacheries those Saxons have done, would give +5 free Passion roll on Love (Family) (I'd allow for Amor or Love, too, if the lady could be in danger from the raiding Saxons) or Hate (Saxons), and then for the rest of the combat, +5 to those afflicted Passions should the PK use them. I think this is quite enough of a bonus for an Orate roll.

Giving the battle-duration Passion on a critical would mean that the most important attribute of a leader is Orate, and while I could see that in the case of Joan of Arc, I think it cheapens the role of Battle. :P +10 to a skill for the whole battle is a huge bonus, turning bumbling novice knights (Sword 10) into tough veterans (Skill 20).

I think I would allow the bonus to be only on the Passions invoked in the speech. You don't get inspired about your family if the speech is only taking about how much we hates them smelly Saxons.

I am also backtracking a bit on the whole battle duration passions... We used those back in the day and given that everyone had Loyalty (Pendragon) at 20 or so, it made battles quite one-sided... especially as those were 'Arthur wins' -battles of early 510s.

How about this:

Critical: Roll a speech-invoked Passion at +5 for free right now, and you have that +5 for other uses later in the battle, too.
Success: Roll a speech-invoked Passion at +5 for free right now.
Failure: No effect.
Fumble: All passion rolls are at -5 for this battle.

In this case, a leader who tugs at heart-strings with a critical Orate of how the knight's loved ones will suffer if those dastardly Saxons manage to invade, and reminding of past treacheries those Saxons have done, would give +5 free Passion roll on Love (Family) (I'd allow for Amor or Love, too, if the lady could be in danger from the raiding Saxons) or Hate (Saxons), and then for the rest of the combat, +5 to those afflicted Passions should the PK use them. I think this is quite enough of a bonus for an Orate roll.

Giving the battle-duration Passion on a critical would mean that the most important attribute of a leader is Orate, and while I could see that in the case of Joan of Arc, I think it cheapens the role of Battle. :P +10 to a skill for the whole battle is a huge bonus, turning bumbling novice knights (Sword 10) into tough veterans (Skill 20).

:)

We're definitely getting somewhere with this. I like the way it's going. Thanks for the input. One factor that might not make the "all the battle" bonus too OP would be the general use of Lance in Round 1; half the PKs would be on sword for Round 2 and until they get rearmed with spears :) But generally, your refinements sound like a mechanic that is worth playtesting a bit. I'll talk to our ref, and see what he thinks. It's good to find more uses for underappreciated skills, I think.

It's good to find more uses for underappreciated skills, I think.


Orate is underappreciated in your campaign? In ours, it is way up there with Courtesy. It is more important often than Battle, since you rarely get to lead an eschille (and usually it is that one guy who works up his Battle for that specific role), but Orate is something you can try at Court to gain Glory or to convince someone to do something.

It's good to find more uses for underappreciated skills, I think.


Orate is underappreciated in your campaign? In ours, it is way up there with Courtesy. It is more important often than Battle, since you rarely get to lead an eschille (and usually it is that one guy who works up his Battle for that specific role), but Orate is something you can try at Court to gain Glory or to convince someone to do something.

Well, we're still a bit little for speaking out of turn, but St Albans just happened, so perhaps Orate will get to come to the fore... which might end up being embarrassing ;)

Well, we're still a bit little for speaking out of turn, but St Albans just happened, so perhaps Orate will get to come to the fore... which might end up being embarrassing ;)


In our (other) campaign, Orate gets a lot of mileage during Anarchy, from convincing vassal knights of Salisbury to support the Countess (or not), to pay the Saxon tribute (or not), to ally with someone (or not). And of course dealing with those foreign emissaries/princes, for example arranging a payment plan of the tribute or alternative ways of payment (like mercenary service rather than tribute). And all of that is in addition to the usual 'tell a tale of my adventures at Court' Glory.

It occurred to me that there's no mechanic that seems to deal with the leader making an inspiring speech to gee his troops up before the fight. It's a classic of literature, and motivational speeches get improved performances out of sports and sales teams and soldiers to this day. Do you think this is a fitting trope for KAP? Do you use some mechanic already in your game? Is it worth noodling a mechanic out for people to riff off of? Is a mechanic to Inspire someone else a good thing to have?
I can see how such a concept might be antithetical to a theme of individual heroism.

Perhaps to inspire them for the First Charge?
Then both sides will probably have it, and end up with a lot of tied battles.

As for "into the breach," I have been planning to put that just before either Badon or the last battle of the game. While it would be fitting for Badon, it may be better for the last battle.

It occurred to me that there's no mechanic that seems to deal with the leader making an inspiring speech to gee his troops up before the fight. It's a classic of literature, and motivational speeches get improved performances out of sports and sales teams and soldiers to this day. Do you think this is a fitting trope for KAP? Do you use some mechanic already in your game? Is it worth noodling a mechanic out for people to riff off of? Is a mechanic to Inspire someone else a good thing to have?
I can see how such a concept might be antithetical to a theme of individual heroism.

Perhaps to inspire them for the First Charge?
Then both sides will probably have it, and end up with a lot of tied battles.

That's one of the reasons I like the idea that it doesn't directly Inspire the troops, but lets them use their own Inspirations. Might be a reason to not give a +5 except on a critical success. To my mind PKs are probably more shining examples with more exceptional Passions than the run-of-the-mill troops they generally face, so it would be an advantage to the PKs when that is the case; there will obviously be times when they face equal or better quality opposition, but Berserkers are always picking the right Round (the one they fight the PKs in) to use their "Love (Wotan)", so it won't make a difference there :)


As for "into the breach," I have been planning to put that just before either Badon or the last battle of the game. While it would be fitting for Badon, it may be better for the last battle.

"Into the breach" is a siege speech; St Crispin's Day (if the Last Battle is in late October) is a more appropriate speech for an open field battle against insuperable odds.

Well, we're still a bit little for speaking out of turn, but St Albans just happened, so perhaps Orate will get to come to the fore... which might end up being embarrassing ;)


In our (other) campaign, Orate gets a lot of mileage during Anarchy, from convincing vassal knights of Salisbury to support the Countess (or not), to pay the Saxon tribute (or not), to ally with someone (or not). And of course dealing with those foreign emissaries/princes, for example arranging a payment plan of the tribute or alternative ways of payment (like mercenary service rather than tribute). And all of that is in addition to the usual 'tell a tale of my adventures at Court' Glory.

Aye. I suppose I was going on "story so far", and we're just trundling into Anarchy now. That makes much sense.