Table of Contents
Welcome to James Kemp's Wiki
This is a collaborative web platform that allows people to edit1) the web pages to provide additional content for some of the stories I have written and the roleplaying games that I am involved in, whether as a player or GM.
There are several namespaces operating slightly different wiki subjects. These are, in no particular order:
- Skyss - Story Background - a fantasy novel I wrote for NaNoWriMo 2016.
- Perfects - background for the near future story and some police roleplaying that I ran in that universe
- Theocracy of Daprav - A D&D campaign that I ran with Glasgow University Games Society around 2002-3.
- Jim Wallman's Universe - a roleplaying by e-mail campaign that I play in, this is an unofficial wiki and none of it is canon unless Jim says it is.
- Interstellar Freelance Unlimited - subset of the Universe pages covering the activities of a mercenary company that we are currently roleplaying every Full Moon.
- Earth Imperium pages. These cover the activities of the Government of the Solar republic (aka Earth Empire) in Jim's Humanity Will Prevail campaign, including the Earth Imperium News Items.
- Free Worlds Alliance - covering the activities of another emerging polity in the Humanity Will Prevail campaign. Mostly contributed by Eric Moroney.
- Universe Background - page collecting the various bits of background info that have come up in various e-mail discussions for the campaigns set in Jim Wallman's Universe.
- Master map of the Universe (6Mb PDF, as at 3212).
- Delta Green - some roleplaying campaigns about horror and conspiracy. The main one was set in Berlin in 1953.
- Free games rules - a collection of free rules for wargames and other sorts of face to face games that I have designed or run.
- Wargames rules - I'm not just a player of games, I also do rules for them from time to time as well as one-off games. A primary outlet for this is through Chestnut Lodge Wargames Group.
- Other free rules - at the moment just those for the 1689 (Orange or Lemon? and Bonnie Dundee, respectively about the debates in the Scots Parliament and then the military campaign of Viscount Dundee during 1689) and The Other Side of the COIN (about what makes people become insurgents). All games that I have have produced for Chestnut Lodge Wargames Group.
- Background for a near future universe where I have written some fiction and also run some roleplaying games in.
Comments and complaints to me at webmaster@full-moon.info please.
James Kemp
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Recent Additions
Earth Ground Force Organisations
Heavy Mobility Infantry Company
Each company is commanded by a Major with a senior2) Captain as his second in command. The basis of the company is the four person fire team, commonly called a brick.
Each brick can operate independently if it has to for a short period of time. Every brick has an officer or NCO in it plus junior NCO as the second in command of the brick.
There are 23 bricks in a Heavy Mobility Armour (HMA) Infantry Company. This gives 92 effective soldiers. Organisationally these are structured as follows:
Company HQ Section
- Major (officer commanding) [0 on company net], Sergeant Major, 2 x Soldiers
- Captain (2ic), Lieutenant3), 2 x soldiers (all four are SLA3 armed)
1 Platoon
Platoon HQ Section
- Captain (comd), Platoon Sergeant4), 2 x Soldier
3 x Sections
- Lieutentant (Sect comd), Corporal, 2 x Soldier
- Sergeant, Lance Corporal, Soldier, SLA3 armed Soldier
The remaining two platoons are structured in the same way as the first platoon. On the company net each platoon is distinguished by a colour or letter in front of their numerical call sign. The practice varies from company to company and on active operations the companies may well change their comms designation on a frequent and regular basis.
Orange or Lemon? - The Cast
The list shows the main characters involved in the goings on in Scotland in 1689. Numbers shown thus [1] indicate the priority for casting if there are insufficient players for all roles to be filled for that player group.
A minimum of four players are required. Preferably the uncommitted players should have at least two of the four positions in a minimum sized game. Both the Jacobite and Williamite factions should have the same number of players if possible.
Loyal Jacobites
- John Graham of Claverhouse, 1st Viscount Dundee, Commander in Chief of the Army [1]
- Balcarres, King James's commissioner for civil affairs in Scotland [2]
- Melfort, Secretary of State (with King James), widely hated Roman Catholic, brother of Drummond of Perth (the imprisoned Chancellor)
Rebellious Williamites
- Duke of Hamilton, William's preferred candidate for High Commissioner. [1]
Uncommitted
- Atholl, King James's High Commissioner when the Convention last met in December 1688 [1]
- George Gordon, 1st Duke of Gordon, Constable of Edinburgh Castle [2]
- Tweedale, a good friend of the Duke of Gordon and historically chosen as the interlocutor between the Convention and the Castle for this reason [3]
Orange or Lemon? - Game Mechanics
Each complete game turn represents one day of the sitting of the Convention. Each of the phases represents a period of up to six hours.
Turn Sequence
- Morning (i.e. before the Convention sits)
- Arriving/leaving Edinburgh
- Political campaigning: either
- rabble rousing (at -10 to IRE score for newly generated mobs); or
- diplomacy/lobbying Convention members.
- Setting guards (for those players with their own troops)
- Convention
- Players declare whether or not they are attending the Convention meeting
- those not sitting treat this as a morning phase
- Convention receives news/petitions/correspondence
- Conduct business (for each item of business in turn)
- declare support for/against motion
- vote if required
- resolve next item of business
- Submit items for tomorrow's business to President
- President announces order of next day's business
- Reveal two NPC voting cards
- Evening
- as morning phase (but no -ve to rabble rousing)
- Night
- remove all mobs
- return guards to garrisons/homes
- no other actions
Any player character not attending the Convention personally may treat that phase as if it were a second morning phase for them. However they may not vote or speak to the Convention.
The Convention
The vast majority of the convention votes are unplayed. The mechanism for dealing with this is a ten by five grid with the short axis showing relative strength of support for either faction (with the middle lane being undecided). The other axis is just to differentiate each of the pairs of cards that will be played.
Set up
There will be twenty playing cards that form ten matched pairs each with ten spots between both cards on the pair. There will be an even number of red spots and black spots so that the support for either faction is evenly balanced. The cards will be shuffled and played face down, two to a row in the neutral (middle) lane of the grid.
Player actions will allow them to either look at the card to determine its value or to move cards unseen between the support lanes.
Moving cards
Successful actions by a faction (or unsuccessful ones by the other faction) allow players to move an NPC voting card one place. The following rules apply:
- a card can only be moved once by the same player in a single game turn
- Only one of the paired cards in a row may be moved by a player in a single game turn
- paired cards cannot share a space except when they are both in the undecided (middle) lane
- cards may only be moved into the strong support (outer) lane when all the other rows have at least one card supporting that faction
- Cards can only be moved out of the opposing faction's support lane when the move has been generated as a result of an unsuccessful action by the opposing faction
Events that allow cards to be moved
Each of the events mentioned below allow one card to be moved.
- winning a vote
- inciting the mob to action in your favour
- successfully resolving an act on behalf of the convention
- other successful acts at the discretion of the umpire
- unsuccessful acts by an opponent (even if they would normally allow more than one move if they had been successful)
These events usually allow more than one card to be moved.
- making a speech to the Convention (see actions section)
- winning a vote by more than 10 votes (one move per ten or part thereof more than the other faction in addition to the move for winning the vote)
- securing the Castle for your faction (three moves)
- resolving a dispute peacefully where it involves armed groups (two moves)
Looking at cards
Cards can only be looked at when the player has spent the turn in the Convention lobbying members. This is done instead of moving a card.
Normal Voting
There are two types of vote. Normal voting is dealt with in this section. Votes to settle the King's status are dealt with in the next section.
When the president of the convention directs that a motion should be voted on then each faction leader states whether or not they support the motion. If both agree then the vote is mostly unanimous. Otherwise each player has a number of votes that they directly control in their briefing. The players tally these votes as they wish to play them.
NPC votes are counted as if each card pair is worth ten votes. The following rules should be used to calculate each lane's net vote:
- Pair off the cards along the support lanes to make the arithmetic faster, only those that don't match up need be counted.
- those in the undecided lane don't count towards either faction winning
- those in the strong support (outer) lane add 5 to their faction's votes
- those in the support (2nd or 4th) lane add 2 to their faction's votes
The winner is the faction with the most votes.
Voting for the King
This is always the last vote of the Convention and it ends the game, except if it is tied.
In this vote all the cards are turned face up. The votes are tallied as follows:
- red cards vote for King James
- black cards vote for Prince William
- Cards in the wrong faction support lane have one or two of their spots counted for the opposing faction (i.e. a seven of hearts in the Prince William strong support (outside) lane would provide 5 votes for King James and 2 for Prince William)
- Players vote as their conscience dictates
Player Actions
Duke of Hamilton
Offices Held
- Privy Councillor
- 3rd Duke of Hamilton (for life)
- William's Commissioner in Scotland
Reputation
- One of the large magnates of Scotland
Religion
- Catholic upbringing
- practising Protestant
Orange or Lemon? - General Briefing
Recent Events
Towards the end of last year (1688) the wife of King James VII and II gave birth to a son. This brought home to those that he had upset with his toleration of Roman Catholics and Protestant dissenters that this policy would continue. Accordingly a number of English nobles and bishops invited his son-in-law, Prince William of Orange, to come to England and replace James as King6).
The relevance of this to Scotland is, of course, that both Kingdoms share a King. When Prince William of Orange landed at Torbay in the extreme South West of England the Scots army (then commanded by General Douglas with John Graham of Claverhouse as Lt General). The Scots army mustered in Wiltshire where it joined elements of the English army in the path of William's army. A large number of defections took place before the King decided to disband the armies rather than putting Britain through another bloody civil war.
The King fled to London, where he made some attempts to persuade William not to proceed. When it became clear that William was still coming James threw the Great Seal of England into the Thames and took flight for France. The English Parliament declared that this was evidence that King James II had abdicated and that William was now King of England in February 1688.
William then called the Scots Parliament into session to repeat the exercise in Scotland. Meanwhile King James gathered together some troops and has landed in Ireland.
Scots Convention
Legality
Normally when the King calls Parliament he nominates a High Commissioner who acts as the President of the Parliament. However this time it is not a Parliament as it has not been called by the King, but by Prince William of Orange who is hoping that they will declare him King. It will be necessary for the members to decide
- who their President ought to be; and
- whether or not they have any legitimate authority to act
Once that has been done then they will (assuming that they do decide that they can legitimately act) be able to make a decision about their King and any other relevant matters that are introduced.
Structure
There are three estates in the Scots Parliament but unlike the English Parliament they all sit as a single body and vote together. In total there are about 150 members.
There is no real consensus for either William or James, although both have their supporters. There is a consensus for having a King, the memory of the inter-regnum and the chaos that was caused by English Commonwealth armies is strong and universally negative.
No-one wants to be on the wrong side, but apart from a few extremists no-one wants to be in the vanguard of showing their disloyalty to the Stuart King. (Remember that the Stuarts have ruled Scotland since 1370 - about as far back from 1688 as it is from now).
Religion
Religion is a very big factor in life for a large section of the population. Even those that do not care much for organised religion, which includes some of the main public figures, need to take account for public opinions on the subject. There has been almost continuous religious strife in Scotland since the start of the reformation.
Church of Scotland
The established Church of Scotland is currently episcopalian7), as is the Church of England. This has not always been the case. From 1638 to 1660 the majority of the Church (or Kirk as it is usually known) were presbyterian8). Even in the early 1660s it took some time for the Episcopalian ministers to be re-established in many parishes because it was difficult to find them. There is still tension between the officially sanctioned episcopalians and the presbyterians in the Kirk.
Conventicles
These are the descendants of the many covenants that were common amongst Scottish protestant dissenters through the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. By the 1680s they are largely confined to the South West but have increased in both religious and political radicalism. The Covenanters, lead by Richard Cameron9), refuse to accept the King's authority over their religion and want to re-establish a republic.
In 1685 following King James VII's accession to the throne it was declared treasonable to take or defend the Covenants. The death penalty was introduced for all those who attended field assemblies. In response the Cameronians held their own field parliament and agreed a Protestation against the accession of James, who was described as a murderer, idolater and a subject of the Anti-Christ. The Cameronians saw King James VII as the ultimate nightmare - a Catholic king as the supreme arbiter in civil and religious matters, about as remote from the Covenanter ideal as is possible.
Roman Catholics
Until recently Catholics were forbidden to hold public office. King James VII over-turned the Test Act by an order in council and instead used royal prerogative to put in place a simple oath of allegiance to the Crown. This benefited the protestant dissenters as well, but was deeply unpopular with the established church. The King is himself a Catholic, hence his policy of enforced religious toleration. There have also been a number of conversions from unscrupulous and ambitious members of the nobility, most notably from the Drummond brothers.
