Publisher Fan Support - [Hot War] Cheat Sheet

Posted by: Malcolm Craig On: Jun 22nd 2010

I've been noodling around with this cheat sheet for Hot War. At the moment it gives the following:

Character creation
Conflicts
Consequences
Crisis Points
Resolving agendas

For those familiar with the game, does it give enough? Is there anything else would you like to see? What bits are unclear or just plain badly written?

I'm aiming to keep this to two sides of A4 maximum. Oh, and when the final version comes out, it won't be my crappy Word document layout!

Cheers
Malcolm

Hot_War_Sheet.doc

Posted by: Iain McAllister On: Jun 28th 2010

If you are intending for this to be used purely in play, I wouldn't bother with character creation on it, since everyone does that at the start anyway.

With the extra space gained from doing this, you could put in visual examples of a conflict.

Clarifications I can see:

Mention how many dice relationships bring in.
Summarise for the GM what each level of dice means in opposition. 3 = incompetent etc.
Under results, I would change

Number of dice higher than opponents highest die = margin of success.
to
Each dice higher than opponents highest die = one success

I think that would make the table that follows a more logical follow on.

Mention negative traits impact on narration.

Looks good otherwise, and I like the page references next to everything.

Cheers

Iain

Posted by: Malcolm Craig On: Jun 28th 2010

Thanks for your comments Iain, that's really useful stuff.

Your point about character creation raises something that totally passed me by: character creation is there, but game creation isn't. Somehow, that's a big omission. Having two cheat sheets might be wise: game/character creation and conflicts in play.

Cheers
Malcolm

Posted by: Sebastian Hickey On: Jul 20th 2010 edited

Hi Malcolm,

For Hell for Leather, I notice that although I (should) know the rules well, I always look for a kickstart guide when the players hit the table. Partly that's because I want to do things in the correct order, and partly that's because that's what you do when you start a game.

It's part of my gaming language.

When I realised I couldn't fit all the shit on one sheet (how to play + how to begin), I separated the sheet into two components. At first I thought that was clunky. The setup part was on one side and the play guide was on the other. Once play began, however, I found that this was a satisfying rig. You get to turn over the sheet, giving permanence to the closure of the setup operation, and adding ritual to the beginning of game play. When I turn over the sheet, we start playing. It's a handy signifier of progression.

So, blah, blah-blahdy blah. How did you get on with the two sheet solution?

Posted by: Malcolm Craig On: Jul 20th 2010 edited

Hey Sebastian,

The cheat sheet is now just one side of A4 (landscape) and contains ONLY the stuff you'll need for conflicts. The character creation sheet comes in a couple of weeks. Which is bizarre, given that character and situation creation comes first. But, it seems that people value you a cheat sheet for conflict resolution more than for character/situation creation. Or is that just my perception of things?

I would have attached the sheet, but something is preventing me from attaching it to this post. Bear with me, it should be online in the next 24 hours.

Cheers
Malcolm

Posted by: Malcolm Craig On: Jul 21st 2010 edited

And lo and behold!

You can now download the handy single page cheat sheet (scroll down towards the bottom of the linked page).

Hopefully this will be really useful to people participating in Hot War games. We'll be doing something similar for Cold City in the near future.

Cheers
Malcolm