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Hey guys!
So, I'm the president of a local game club, and I've been trying to come up with an interesting weekend event for a bunch of our local Pathfinder players. I figured that I'd pitch the premise and what I've worked out for it so far to you guys, and see if you have any suggestions. This would be a super intensive event, so any suggestions and comments would be welcome. My roommate and I have also been thinking about hypothetical strategies to playing this thing, so that could be fun to discuss, too!
Every year, the gladiator state of Tymon in the River Kingdoms runs a special tournament, independent of the regular gladiator battles. Gorum's Gambit, as it has come to be known, is a grueling multi-day running battle through the wilderness around Tymon, in which color-coded adventuring teams wage war on each other for the grand prize: a single unlimited service courtesy of the First Blade, herald of Gorum.
The rules are simple...
...and that's where we segue into game rules.
The Rules
Gorum's Gambit requires twelve players, to be separated into four three-man teams (red, yellow, blue, green). Each team has its own GM, and all four GMs will constantly be in contact via computer. Each character is a 20-point character of 8th level, but with the gear of a first-level character: they may possess only what can be paid for with their class average starting money. Characters can either be built by their respective players in advance, or the GMs will make multiple "stock" teams that can be played by new players.
The game will take place on a Kingmaker-style hex map, with the gladiator city of Tymon at the center. All teams will start out adjacent to Tymon. Instead of using the Kingmaker travel system (which would swiftly become unwieldy with multiple teams), gameplay will be divided into two phases, the ACTIVE PHASE and the SLEEP PHASE. Traditionally, this will represent day and night, but a team might hypothetically choose night as their active phase (an advantageous strategy if all three team members have darkvision, for instance).
During a phase, teams get TWO MAP MOVEMENT ACTIONS:
-Moving to an adjacent hex costs ONE MAP MOVEMENT ACTION
-Exploring the currently occupied hex costs ONE MAP MOVEMENT ACTION
-Moving to an adjacent hex while sneaking costs TWO MAP MOVEMENT ACTIONS
-Moving to an adjacent hex while covering your team's tracks costs TWO MAP MOVEMENT ACTIONS
-Staying in the same hex and hiding costs ONE MAP MOVEMENT ACTION
If a team does not sleep during their sleep phase, they may spend an additional two movement points, but they may not prepare spells and are fatigued the next day. If they engage in combat during the sleep phase, they are exhausted instead of fatigued. If a team attacks another during the sleep phase, the attacking team gets a surprise round (unless the defending team has foolishly not chosen a lookout, in which case the attacking team could very well attack under cover of silence and wipe the whole defending team). This also applies if a team that has chosen night as their active phase moves into the same space as a team that has chosen day as their active phase, or if a team with day as their active phase moves into the space that a night team starts movement in.
Regardless of context, if two teams enter into PvP, the two GMs will merge them onto one table, and then run the combat "Battleship Style," with combat taking place on a numbered grid, movements being written on paper, and miniatures only being revealed when a member of the rival team makes visual contact. Otherwise, battles with NPCs are run as normal.
Time Rules
During combat, Panic Mode is in effect and players have only 60 seconds to choose what they're doing and describe it. If they can't choose something in 60 seconds, they are presumed to be delaying their action and the next person in the initiative order goes. Orders and suggestions being shouted are presumed to be said aloud, for the purposes of teams engaging in PvP.
Encounters will be balanced to take no more than a few turns, and each hex will have only one or two NPC encounters. This will be to expedite play such that each active phase can be hard-capped at an hour. If for whatever reason a team is still dancing around an encounter after an entire hour of Panic Mode combat, they continue into the next phase and are considered to be fatigued the next day.
Increasing in power and off-limits areas
The city of Tymon itself is not off-limits, and is in fact the only place around to grab gear, healing, resurrections, or magic items. However, this makes it appealing to all the teams, and due to the characters' reputation as competitors and the willingness of Tymon's citizens to spur on conflict, hidden characters in Tymon will not stay hidden for long.
The primary impetus to leave Tymon and skulk around in the wilderness is that many of the local monsters, bandits, beasties, and natural hazards have been "seeded" with cash, magic items and useful pieces of gear (It is even rumored that 5,000 gold pieces' worth of diamond dust is hidden somewhere), which when retrieved by the competing teams could offer them a leg up on other teams.
After 10 days have passed, the hexes on the edge of the map go off-limits, and teams have one action phase to leave or become disqualified. This repeats on day 12, 13, and so on, until all parties have either killed each other or been forced into Tymon. During this period, if a party enters Tymon, it is brought to the Arena of Aroden to await the arrival of another party to do battle.
This is the rough framework I had in mind. Thoughts? Comments? Questions? Suggestions?