Hi everyone!

Tannhauser as a fantastic game in part, and some might argue mostly, because of the setting and story. The characters are fantastic, the time, the history, the gear! It is, I think, perfect for a pen and paper RPG where players can create their own pulp heroes to go toe to toe with the Reich, the Shogunate, the Matriarchy, and the Union.

So I started thinking of how I wish someone would make a Tannhauser pen and paper RPG. But then I started thinking of systems I would use and how it could be done. I think I have enough of an idea that I want to actually do it. I want to be someone who makes a Tannhauser RPG. But I want to do it with people so everyone who thinks like I do can enjoy it. Also... I made a RPG before. It can be a lot of work. And for this, I wanted to do it with a fresh new system that is built off the board game. That is right. I want Tannhauser the RPG to feel like Tannhauser the board game when you play it.

I have plans to emulate the stats (though expand on them), include personal command points, lots of stuff. But it all needs some brain storming. It needs some constructive criticism.

Here is what I am hoping to find here.

- 1 or 2 other people to work with me directly on design. Of course everyone working directly on the project is free to give feed back and make suggestions. But I am looking for people with a strong analytical mind who are good with problem solving to crack game mechanics. Any previous custom game rules work is a plus. Especially if it is in pen and paper.

- 1 or more writers. I wrote my last game like this. The book took me months and months to work on. Years really when it comes down to it. And with design, play test, and the other responsibilities it was just too much. I would like to stay focused on the rules and the play tests this time around so if someone is willing to take the lists of rules and notes and turn it into chapters so it is an actual book people can read that would just be amazing.

- Play Testers. I think this would be the easiest to find here. But in particular if someone with some history of DMing wants to create some 1 shots or other short games that we can use to keep testing out the game that would be great. Again, the less planning of that stuff and writing the actual books I need to do the more I can examine the mechanics and make the appropriate adjustments, build lists of weapons and gear, build character creation bonuses, etc etc...

In the end I hope to make frequent posts with updates and and such to keep people in the know about the project, where it is going, and get general forum feedback. But I would like to try to build a more comprehensive "team" to work on it with so as to not have too many cooks in the kitchen, but a solid team to work on it, if you know what I mean?

Is anyone interested in this?

If you want to do any of the jobs listed above please let me know here or email me, rjmaehr@gmail.com

Oh, by the way, my resume of sorts.

I studied game design with the University of Advancing Technology and the Pittsburgh Art Institute. I designed a pen and paper system including my own magic system from scratch based around the unisystem by Eden Studios. It was pretty rockin. Currently I am system and level designer for a indy game company working on a project I cannot actually talk about so I wont. BUT, the point being, I am familiar with game systems and mechanics and that is why I am trying to build this little team and lead the development. Clearly not for profit and just because this would be awesome.

Here is some preliminary ideas for the game. Just basics. Nothing hammered out yet.

Character creation would be point buy. Meaning you have a certain number of points that you spend on different qualities for the character.

Attributes:

Might: Melee attacks. Also some equipment will have might requirements to use without penalty (I.E. Heavy weapons)

Agility: Ranged attacks. Dodging

Toughness: Contributes to shock rolls.

Intellect: Spells and spell like things.

Willpower: Resisting mind influencing stuff

Skills:

works with attributes to accomplish actions.

Guns

Melee

Mechanics

Stealth

etc etc...

Command Points:

Each character will get 3 command points. They gain 1 command point after every battle and reset back to 3 after a rest. The more you fight without resting the more points you can accumulate to spend in a single fight.

Command points can be spent to raise a stat (increasing chance of success on a single roll)

Can also be spent to shrug off wounds.

Other stuff I have not planned out yet...

Health levels:

I would like to have health levels just like on the Tannhauser boards. Basically whatever your attribute is would determine what the attribute levels below it would be. Characters would have more then 4 rows though... I am thinking something more like 6-7. If anyone played white wolf games they would be familiar with that kind of thing. Just this would be the first time it effected all your attributes. Some perks you can take in character creation might be able to add additional health levels or reduce the degradation of specific stats. (Instead of your might being 6/5/4/3/2 it would be 6/6/5/5/4 or some such. Dunno. Numbers need to be crunched.)

And other stuff I haven't fully planned out yet!

Character creation will include a ton of perks you can take to customize your characters. Including unique equipment!

This is how I am thinking attributes could work with skills to determine rolls.

-First, you roll 10 sided dice, 10s are automatic success 1s automatic failure.

-Your attribute gives you a base pool of dice. Meaning even if you have no skill in something you still might roll a 10 and get a success out of blind luck.

-Your skill works like the stats in the board game. Skill - 10 = target number for a success.

-Equipment adds dice to your dice pool.

-So.. Lets say in the pen and paper it is 1 die for a melee weapon, 2 dice for a pistol and 3 for automatic.

-Armor adds dice to your shock rolls, stamina is your base dice pool for shock rolls, and skill sets your difficulty.

So...

I want to shoot you.

Agility is a 4

I have a 4 skill in guns.

I have a weapon automatic.

4 (from agility) + 3 (from my gun) = 7 dice with 6 or better getting a success.

You try to dodge.

Stamina + armor with difficulty set by your acrobatics or some crap that would make sense for dodging it.

Then it would work just like the board game. Each uncanceled success would deal one wound and you would dial down your attributes.

Well, I am going to keep posting stuff I am doing in case it sparks anyone else's interests. I got some positive feed back so far. Not as much as I hoped for but some.

Here is a demo character sheet. Testing the layout. Skills section will be expanded. I don't think we need that many rows for armor. And abilities might need to be expanded.

Stats are, from left to right, Might, Agility, Stamina, Intellect, Will Power, Perception (Maybe Awareness? Trying new names for the things these are normally called).

I figure you could put a paper clip on the side of the sheet and slide it up and down when you get wounded. Would allow you to keep seeing your stats while marking where you are at.

Looks good so far, but I don't play RPGs so that's about all I can say.

I do play RPGs and am following with considerable interest. As soon as I get enough time I will begin giving you some positive input / critique

-Nhoj

So here are some systems I want to hybridize into this thing.

The drama points/healing surges from Eden studios Unisystem/Dungeons and Dragons 4th ed.

-I think the recovery portion of DnD fits with Tannhauser's rules for command points, but spending them to do actions like the Unisystem is more like how command points work in Tannhauser. So mixing the 2 systems together and calling it Command Points gets us something that gives players a edge to bring to a fight that emulates the source game well.

-The light and loose character creation options of GURPS Hellboy. Hellboy basically has everything Tannhauser does. And it is presented in a simple rules light version in that GURPS book. Obviously adjustments to costs need to be made, but for a basic list of perks and drawbacks players can take I think Hellboy is the foundation to build on.

-The board game itself. Some of what I have posted so far shows how the board game is being used to build the RPG. It should, in the end, feel like Tannhauser. Also I want to get in special effects on equipment. The flash guns should give you something if you roll a natural 10. Stuff like that.

Current trouble area: Magic. I have some hitches I can see coming from magic in the game. Things like the 7th plague need to be possible in Tannhauser but it needs to be difficult. Easily done by breaking things down into ritual and extended actions vs abilities that can be done with a single action. But less easily balanced is a spell attacking a players mind. When Itami forces a character to move in the RPG what exactly are the rolls? I think games fall into trouble with these kinds of mechanics being made into 2 separate systems that need to then be balanced agaisnt each other. They can't. They never have been and people need to stop designing them thinking they can. I want to avoid that. Casting a spell or using an ability should run on the same set of rules as shooting a gun.

So maybe... the ability grants a skill? I take a pyrokenesis Perk. That gives me Pyrokenesis skill (or maybe it just falls under occult?) and one ability (more abilities can be purchased with more points). The skill then sets the difficulty of the roll, while attribute and the ability itself create the dice pool. A player then rolls will to resist... but what sets his difficulty? It needs to be something everyone can have that has more use then just resisting spells. Maybe a concentration (that would allow you to stay focused on tasks while under preasure? I don't know yet. Need to come up with another few ideas and test the merits of each.

Well I should be able to help you with the feel and general Tannhauseryness. Like making your character sheet feel more like a gov't fom, and working on the terminolgy.

Of course you don't have to use anything I come up with.

Had some free tme so I worked this up, you don't have to use it though.

Link to a larger image: https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-QHv2YNKqs_w/T1Z2SNT7rmI/AAAAAAAADA0/zlweOSmod0I/s800/THRPG.jpg

I made a couple of terminology changes, they may not work for you, but here's a quick run down: Added race, changed perk to qualification (it fits from a military sense), changed drawbacks to phobias, renamed and reorganized the skills list. Most the other changes are cosmetic.

Statistic symbols: Might, Agility, Stamina, Will Power, Intelect, Situational Awareness

Very nice. I do like the more military formness of the character sheet. I will have to adjust stuff (or tell you what I need adjusted if you don't mind remaking a character sheet?) Once I hammer out a few more details.

On to magics stuff...

First magic will be broken into 2 categories.

Magic and Powers.

Magic is actual spells. This is Obscura Corps type ****. Powers are "natural" abilities of the character that come from part of their nature. Basically you have a Riech spell caster he will be using magic. You run into Itami he will be using powers.

Magic is based on intelligence and requires materials, locations, and the proper time. Sometimes the material might negate some of these requirements (like the Patmos amulet). Location is more or less important depending on the spell in question (places of power kind of thing). This means big end of the world type crap requires everything to be just right and a certain number of successes to cast. But small stuff can be done with material aids and be used fairly regularly in combat. The skill is Occult. Most spells will have a occult requirement to cast without penalty.

Powers on the other hand... Powers are gained through perks. Like the perk "Oni" would grant the ability to purchase certain powers and the skill that is your aptitude at using these powers. Powers are based on willpower. itami would have the Oni perk and the Power that lets him move people. The power would add no dice of it's own. So it is essentially a will vs will contest with his Oni skill setting difficulty and his (probably high) will power giving him a dice pool.

Types of psychic powers would also fall under powers because they are not ritual or arcane in nature but instead a inherent ability of the character. Different powers and spells will have "cool downs" determining how often you can use them for balance sake.

Qualifications and phobias wont quite fit because some of the "qualifications" will be things like "Demons Taint" (Har Har!) and some of the "phobias" would be things like Animal Intellect (which could be coupled with Demons Taint to Make the Strosstrupen).

I realized today what I am actually having trouble with is a broader mechanic called an attribute test. How do you determine the difficulty when rolling for something based purely on a stat?

You try to lift rubble off an ally (might test).

You walk into a room and you have a perception test to see if you notice anything is wrong.

The mind control ability of Itami is basically a contested willpower test. Each person trying to trump the other to dominate or resist domination. Itamis side could arguably be determined with a skill. But it does not have to be. It could simply be a result of his willpower alone, the power allowing him to make a willpower test to accomplish the task.

Should the difficulty be a 6? A 50/50 chance on every die? Should I go the White wolf route and say a 7 or higher (or their old way 8 or higher)? With the only thing that boosts your chances being how high your attribute is and thus how large your dice pool is? Further can this be expanded to other powers? A pyrokinetic who attempts a fireball style attack would roll a willpower test with dice added by the power itself (the way guns would add dice to dice pools?) That seems like a way to make powers either consistently weak or powerful compared to skills depending on how high or low the difficulty is set. At 5 it's like you always have a 5 in guns. Never better or worse. Great for early game. Crap when people start raising skills higher.

Another idea was to have the attribute set the difficulty. A 3 will power means roll 3 dice with 10-3=7 as the difficulty. But this escalates quickly. A 5 in willpower is then 5 dice with 5 or higher being a success. And large or huge creatures with massive strengths would then always get a success unless they rolled a 1.

I need ideas from other people. Suggestions on how attribute tests could work that I can bounce around. Maybe somebody will approach it from an angle I have not thought of and we can find something that clicks.

The difficulty should be determined by the stat, and the dice pool should be standardized, this limits the complexity, and is in keeping with how the TH game works. So players will be able to pick up quickly.

The problem with that is what role do skills play then? Every character is just as good with a sword as they are a gun? A conversion from board game to pen and paper requires a little more complexity. My first thought when deciding to do this was your idea. But it was too limited. It encompassed everything you needed to do in the board game but not everything a person can reasonably do, which a pen and paper has to.

The best suggestion I have heard so far is 2 part.

First, the difficulty should have half the stat rounded down. Second, that the cap for difficulty should be set to 7. Both from skills and attribute tests. Each time you would otherwise gain a bonus beyond cap instead would offer some other benefit. Like reducing dice for the other guy or maybe a free success or some such. Dunno about that part. But the cap would be needed to keep things in order.

I see what your saying, I guess it's that extra complexity that while I guess it's necessary is why I don't play RPGs.

But one last suggesstion...

Stats represent inate physical traits/genetics not stuff you can teach/learn.

Skills would then represent what can be taught/learned, so it would be a multiplier for the stats.

This way you could keep standard dice pools (to be determined).

Examples: Your might stat is 3, your Personal Combatives sklill is 1.5 so your difficulty is 6 (4.5 rounded down to 4) (10-4=6)

Your might stat is 3, your Hand-to-Hand Arms skill is 2 so your difficulty is 4 (10-6=4)

Your might stat is 3, your Firearms skill is 2.5 so your dificulty is (7.5 rounded down to 7) (10-7=3)

That's just some combat examples but this gives you a huge ammount of possiable combinations for different actions.

The stat/skill could also be additive instead of a multiplier.

All just something to think about.

The reason why I went for stats as the base dice pool size was two part. One, it made stats (which will be much more expensive to increase then skills) give a big bonus for doing so. After all, there is only so strong a human can get. Extra dice is extra chances for success. But it also factors into the unskilled attempts at tasks.

Somebody with a high agility (which would be used to fire guns because it is based on quick precision as opposed to brute force) would have more dice and more chances for a natural 10 to get blindly lucky and pull off a shot. Probably not a very good one, but still a chance. Where as a klutz with crap agility would have a significantly lower chance to accomplishing the same thing due to a smaller dice pool.

One of the other things to keep in mind is that stats and skills are not static numbers in RPGs. You do not simply make a character. Character progress is a large part of the fun. It is not just about facing challenges, but improving and facing tougher challenges. Consider The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Clearly every character who was in the first book was a way bigger bad ass by the end of the 3rd. Experience point gain, which is then spent to raise attributes and skills, simulates that progress for the characters.

To that end, putting in fractions and such is WAY complicating the math on something I am actually keeping VERY rules light. Other RPGS do some serious real life emulation in their rules and get very complicated. I am trying to keep Tannhauser fast and loose to simulate both the style of the setting (Pulp Heroes, Sci Fi, Weird Tales kind of stuff) and the board game.

Thanks for the feed back though. It is stuff to think about. And even if it's an idea I can't or don't use this kind of feedback might get me approaching this from a new angle. I appreciate it.

I wanted to make one last go at this because it's something I believe in, so here it goes.

I think that the dice pool should be locked at three d10s multiplied together that will give you any number between 1 and 1000, I think.

Then the Stats could be any number 1-100, multiplied by the Skill a number 1-10, that will give you a difficulty score of a number between 1 and 1000.

So all you have to do is roll 3 d10s and multiply them, then if the number is lower/= then you difficulty score it's a "hit" and your apply the effect, damage, etc.

There should only be a few stats, like the 4 in Tannhauser already, these represent the systems of the body. Then you can have lots of different skills, like for guns magic, etc, that way even if a character has a high mental stat, if their Hermetics skill is 0 they won't be able to use "magic".

I drew up another character sheet and threw some stuff on it just to start to look at things. Then I started rolling dice, to get a feel. It seems to work Ok.

Now let me say I really like this idea, and I'm going to continue it's development, but your welcome to ignore it, I won't mind. Thanks for your time.

So how does "damage 10" translate into damage to the player?

I haven't decided yet, one step at a time you know.

Here is my current working model for damage,

Step 1 is as above, say it is a hit.

Step 2 is for the target to determine how much damage was caused, at first I was using 10 as a straight percent off the player's 100% health, but that doesn't give the target any chance to dodge, or shake off the wound. So then I thought about TH's shock roll, but how to fix the dificulty. I thought about the Stamina Stat X the Physical Training Skill, in this case that gives you a 70. Roll three d10s and get 10, 4, 7, that's 280 so the target failed the roll and would suffer 10% damage. If the target rolled 1, 4, 6, that would be 24 a success.

Now the question is does a success block all the damage or only some? Right now I'm using the Physical Training Skill, an subtracting it from the Damage, so 10 becomes 8, then I subtract the total DFS value from the armor section, in this case 5, so now the damage recieved by the target is only 3.

I'm worried this is too complex, but I don't know how complex it should be.

Now there could be Abilities or Equipment the change which Stat x Skill combo is used for the "shock roll".

Again use only what you want.

Back to being a dad, later.

What an interesting little project....

The other problem you might run into is with your idea to multiply stuff. Multipliers are dangerous territory. Things grow exponentially out of control.

What happens when a person with 1 skill shoots at a person with 7 skill? What kind of chance do they have to accomplish anything at all?

What happens when someone with no guns skill picks up a gun and tries to fire it?

Gameplay has been defined as a series of interesting choices. If the no skill person has a chance to do damage even if it's a low chance then it's an interesting gamble. If the person has no chance, or so low a chance as to be nothing, or so low a chance that any damage they could do is just plain negligible at it's BEST then it's no longer interesting. It's a waste of an action.

Using multipliers has, in my experience, been the quick way to make a power gap between characters and creatures that cripples the interesting choices players can be faced with.

Been MIA due to work and studies, but will chime in here with a few thoughts and suggestions. My email is long and reflects my personal approach to game design, as well as some thoughts on RPGs based on my (limited) experience with them. I enjoy them, but do not currently have an RPG group, and have not played one in years. Back when I did have a group, I got to try DnD 3rd Ed (and some of its variants) and the old West End Star Wars rules. I also helped develop or played with a couple of homebrew rules.

To start with, I think some of the French fans already made an RPG based on the Tannhauser world. It might be worth it to see if you can find it (and run it through Google translate) to see what they tried before.

Next, some thoughts on game design. It looks like a lot of scattered ideas have been thrown out there already, which is great because it helps the creativity process. At the same time, I recommend that you also take a step back and take a "bigger picture" approach as well. Basically, its a good idea to get a better idea of what you want your game to do. Of course, that bigger picture will be a flexible one, and will likely evolve as you develop your rules.

Anyway, some initial questions to consider... What is your goal? What do you want to capture, and how does it differ from other RPGs? These should be broad ideas, not specific mechanics since you can flesh them out later. Some examples:

• 
  
• Scope of story. Do you expect your rules to accomodate massive campaigns which last for years, or will it be designed for shorter storylines? Some games allow you to take the characters from simple peasants to Gods. Those might require many levels of advancement. Other games might be designed for shorter campaigns, in which case a few levels of advancement could be sufficient. I'm sure your planned scope will affect other areas as well.
  

• 
  
• The world you want to capture: since TH is a game about soldiers in WWI, you may want to ask yourself what mechanics will help you capture that. For example, you might incorporate a morale system to help determine if NPC soldiers will follow a player who is the leader of his unit. Or you could have specific tactics that a unit might train in and learn, which allows the team to work together better, rather than the usual RPG approach where each character and NPC trains separately, and work together automatically. Tannhauser already has some tactics anyway, so this could be a neat way to incorporate them into an RPG.
  

• 
  
• The spectrum you want to capture: some games may focus on a snapshot of a world. Tannhauser itself is an example of that. It focuses on small group missions. Will your RPG be limited to the same scale, or do you want it to include more? A realistic RPG might do fine with rules which focus on humans and some normal animals with a set of limited stats, ie, 1-10. A fantasy RPG which needs to incorporate demigods and dragons would probably need a more open system, ie, in DnD, you can add 2 to your roll, or 12, or 100... In terms of a Tannhauser RPG, one of the major questions to consider is whether you want to accomodate tanks and other vehicles.
  

• 
  
• The detail you want to capture: Do you want to keep the RPG-lite on random details or will you incorporate charts or other mechanics to add extra events and encounters to the game. For example, in DnD, the game master often rolls on a chart to determine if you'll have a random encounter when you travel. Do you want to have similar mechanics built into the game, or will you let the game master decide to add those as needed? See also my comment about game master control vs automation below.
  

Another big picture type of question that I would consider is how you want to approach the general mechanics of the game. I'd consider your audience here as well. Some basic approaches:

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• Mechanics which resemble those found in the Tannhauser game. It looks like your initial ideas followed this approach. One major advantage is that it helps the game feel familiar to TH fans. You do need to take a close look to determine what will set the RPG apart from the board game though.
  

• 
  
• Mechanics based on another RPG. This is a very common approach; you basically take the mechanics from a tried and true RPG, and then customize it for TH. This approach provides you with a set of rules that has already been playtested by others, and allows you to skip numerous steps. It may also appeal to people who have played with the chosen RPG rules before though it could potentially decrease accessibility to TH players.
  

• 
  
• Mechanics which are more or less novel. Miah's idea for a triple multiplier would be an example of this. This route is probably the most difficult since it will involve a lot of thought and testing to create a complete set of balanced mechanics. Your audience is also likely to be more limited, at least initially. If done well, this approach can be very rewarding. If done poorly, it can lead to a set of rules which are neither fun nor unbalanced.
  

Obviously, the three approaches above are not mutually exclusive, and your final rules will probably incorporate some element of all three approaches above. Some other "big" mechanism considerations:

• 
  
• Different games have different balances between game master control and automation. How big of a role do you want the game master to have? For example, do you want a 6 on the D10 to always succeed, or do you want to have the game master pick the "success" number? Another example, do you add random tables or do you let the game master decide on encounters? Or do you incorporate both, and let the players decide what they want to use?
  

• 
  
• KISS: Keep it Simple, Stupid. Remember that complexity for the sake of complexity is not fun for most people. If you can find simpler rules that do what you want, its probably a good idea to use them!
  

I'm sure there are other big considerations that I could think of, but those come to mind at the moment. From there, I'd focus on the overall mechanics of the game before you delve too far into the details. Ideally, you'd have a simple adventure prepared which will let you playtest the rules. The adventure might have just a few characters, items, etc so its easy to re-stat them for every ruleset that you test out. Once you find an overall mechanic which feels right, you could then start to look at the specifics in the game, and add them to the adventure to test out as you go. Obviously, there will be a lot of back and forth here, and the mechanics may be vague at first, with more fleshing out and testing later.

Finally, the FFG forums may not be the best place to develop a set of rules. The forums have very limited features / tools, and you're bound to lose some ideas in the jumble. It might be a good idea to start a Google / Yahoo Group as a way to better organize the ideas and people for your project. That way, you can continue to post updates, ideas, and look for general feedback here, and use the Google group for more detailed discussions and etc.

Thanks for the thoughts.

I am shooting for the rules to make a game and run it in the simplest fashion. Random encounter charts like DnD offer are nice.. ish. If you have a full blown monster manual and all that stuff. What i would liek to do is create all the rules needed to make a wide range of character options including the 5 characters that are the base characters in each faction (3 heroes and 2 troopers). Then, make a character sheet for each of them to show how the rules translate from the board game into the broader rpg system.

This gives enemies right off the bat. If your union, I bet you will fight shocktuppen and strosstruppen. Well, there are their basic stats. Use them. Modify them as you need. But the Unisystem had a great way of simplifying the run of the mill enemies you fight and I wanted to steal something similar to that in the form of "NPC Cards". Little index card sized sheets that just give the basics you need to run a fight with the guys.

Charts outside of whats needed for character creation likely wont be done by me. I'm providing the tools. DMs provide the story for their players.

Yes, I intend to have rules for vehicles. It's silly to have a game at that time period and never expect the players to run into some kind of demon tank.

Finally, right now I am compiling a list of the gear from the game converted for pen and paper usage and perks/drawbacks to finish a first draft of character creation. I figure once basic character creation can be done it's time to play test the thing.

Hey thought I'd chime in on this since I ran a Tannhauser RPG for maybe 8 sessions.

I utilized 4 stats to most resemble Tannhauser- the biggest changes here were:

• rolling the movement stat into the 'combat stat
• adding a charisma like stat (since we needed rolls for interacting- lying and deception were a big thing)
• letting stamina double as what you're referring to as a might roll, since we figured tough guys tend to be the bruisers

This left me with

• Agility
• Toughness
• Intellect
• Charisma

or some variant in names (it's been a while since we did this)

I felt like I needed more characters since I wanted to build up to the major characters of Tannhauser, so I added new factions, and ran the major factions as more or less background while letting the heroes and the smaller factions interact more. For example the Matriarchy and the Reich were fighting on fronts, but small groups like Rasputin himself or the research team behind Project Deathray (Zorka) would act as minor factions with separate agendas.

For rolls, I used a "test" system, although it felt very incomplete as tests in tannhauser often result in at least 1 success. Not sure what I'd do differently, but I am not a fan of adding more dice- maybe put penalties on their stats for more difficult tasks. I ended up requiring at least 3 successes for most tests (if it merited a roll I demanded a better than 2 out of 4 successes.

Contested rolls worked much like duels do in the board game.

On command points- I would recommend not giving some to every player, especially not 3. Think about how you want to run your game, do you want your combats to take an hour at a time? If you only want to do combat, it'd be much easier to make custom characters and play Tannhauser itself. If you're running a role playing game in this awesome setting you probably only want long combats for important battles- so players can get back to exploring and interacting with the amazing stuff going on in the world.

Spendable things are fun, but meaningful decisions will happen more if the team has to decide on things like command points- IMO. Give your players other things to spend.

I should get to sleep, but I'm really glad to see this topic brought up again!