Gladiator: Competition between Ludi part 1 of 3

I went ahead and tried a simple campaign model for players that want to use all of  their Gladiator collection.

I call this campaign model "Competition between Ludi" (Gladiator schools), and this three part post will show how it works with the skills and accumulating money. It's a very simple campaign model which can be played and finished in a day if you have time for a couple games.

1) Getting started/randomly assigning gladiators

First assemble all of your available gladiators into a formation so that you can randomly assign gladiator models to players, by rolling two dice. In this case I had 16 profiles forming a 4x4 square. Each Lannista then rolled 2D4 which marked the row and order of gladiator fighters to be picked. 2 and 3, meant row two third gladiator from the left and so on.

Players could of course if they each have their own collection of models, agree upon the number of Gladiators they would each run in the campaign, or take turns in picking gladiators.

2) Generating income and leveling up

Gladiators generate revenue for the Lannista according to the following model (all of which are cumulative, so keep notes of the progress).

20 Sestertii for surviving the fight
20 Sestertii for wounding a gladiator/noxii
100 Sestertii for defeating a gladiator (50 for defeating a noxii)

Gladiators also level up according to how many "victories" they have scored. In this case you can play a fast or slow campaign by either stating a victory being the defeat of an enemy gladiator (fast progress) or surviving a battle and being part of the victorious side (slow progress).

3) The fight, drafting your gladiators

The Editor of the game rolls 1D6, the number shows how many gladiators each side will provide in the fight. If a 1 is rolled, then the Lannista players may freely elect which gladiator to send into the 1vs1 fight. Otherwise you have to randomly determine which gladiators that become drafted in this round of fighting.

It may happen that one side ends up having fewer gladiators remaining than the required fight, in this case the Editor provides free Noxii slaves to even out the numbers. These Noxii never become the property of the Lannista and do not generate any revenue for him personally, neither do they level up or become a permanent part of his team´.

4) Fight and post game sequence

During the fight, keep track of wounds, victories, and everything else that affect the appeal to the crowd roll, leveling up and which may generate revenue. Distribute money to each Lannista according to how well their team made. Check on wounded gladiators who ended up at the Medicus. And finally level up surviving gladiators who have earned it and assign skills and perks. Perks always come into play during the next fight, not earlier.

5) Ending the campaign

Several different endings could be proposed. Either players play until one school has lost all of its Gladiators to the point where they cannot put up a fight anymore OR players agree beforehand how many fights are to be played and the Lannista with most remaining money at the end of the game wins. Another variant would be to pitch the victorious team against Arena champions provided by the Editor for a final fight.

Additional notes:

At the relatively low revenue that gladiators generate in this campaign, you may play the “Bribing” house rule as it is without any changes.

Players may also agree that they may refill their roster with Tyro level gladiators if they are able to pay for it. In this case you have to decide what the Tyro level gladiator of each class may be worth before starting the campaign.

Part 2 and 3 will show how the fighting works with D6 gladiators in the arena at the same time using my house rules and these campaign rules.