Skirmish Mode

Skirmish Mode emphasizes Allies of Majesty’s tactical combats and de-emphasizes non-combat roleplaying. Skirmish Mode is a way to enjoy Allies of Majesty’s combat system without always needing to have a developed and intricate story involved. The intent is for Allies of Majesty to be flexible. Sometimes you may not have time or inspiration to create or play out a prolonged story. Or maybe you the group just wants to get straight to the action. Any of these are acceptable reasons to play the game in Skirmish Mode.

Skirmish Mode, can be versatile. The most straightforward is to treat the story as a backdrop for the current War you are about to commence for the session. Just give a narrative summary as to why the holy Watchers are about to address the spiritual forces of evil. Why are you there? Why has it come to fighting? After the War, give a narrative summary of the results after the War. How will the story progress from here? Did the War change anything?

When played this way, keep in mind that the players did not really participate in the story other than the War. The amount of Honor the characters will gain is therefore affected. Part of the Honor awarded to characters is for accomplishing Missions through roleplaying and also combat. In this case, you cut out the non-combat roleplaying and so the Honor awarded should only reflect the unholy enemies that were overcome.

Flexibility is the goal and so Skirmish Mode does not entirely have to omit non-combat situations. You may choose to treat the story as more of a participatory narrative. In this case, the narrative should be treated as currently happening, not a summation of what happened leading up to the War. The players will be encouraged to interrupt the narrative with things their characters might do or say that could affect the narrative. The main difference as compared to standard play is that the situations are explained to the players instead of described in more detail from the characters’ point of view.