Goodman Games

guyz,

I just read what I tink are the 1rst four conan stories. Out of those, 2 of em had conan leading/fighting in war. There have been battles in other books too, The Broken Sword and Stealer of Souls come to mind. So war doesn't seem foreign to sword and sorcery to me... but something that happenz. The characters don't even need to be nobility/kings to run the show. In the Black Colossus, Conan just happened to be walking down the street and he became the general!

Are we forgetting this important aspect of the Appendix N literature and focusing too much on dungeon crawling? Is this something that the DCC Master should be expected to make up whenever he needs a war?

This is something I would love to see. I think this is one of the things over-looked by modern games, they almost completely forget about the war-game roots of RPGs.

Rules for war would be great to have... though that is one area of rules where I have never seen an RPG system manage to both work well, and be easy to use.

I tend to basically skip war rules all together, even when at war in a campaign, and just use "swarms" were I treat each unit as a single creature of increased size - because anything else takes too much time and effort to set up with my 15 minutes prep to 4 hours play ratio that I insist upon sticking to.

I'd tink you'd need at least 2 levels of detail:

1. mass combat, where you treat many as one
2. individual combat, where the PC's suddenly are fighting some-one/thing

That's how it worked out in the conan story. It went from big units clashing to him fighting the main bad guyz. I'd assume that #2 wouldn't be that different from regular DCC.

The problem, as I see it, is that rules for large-scale battles almost become their own rules set instead of just an add-on. In addition to looking at units of troops fighting units of troops you need to have some sort of system to convert characters into the same scale as the units, and then need some sort of system to account for spell effects on a unit scale as well. This has the potential for being a major undertaking.

Overall, I use an approach similar to that proposed by TheNobleDrake. You need to focus on smaller parts of the whole and let the whole take care of itself. In essence, a "war" involving a character becomes a series of smaller encounters, probably leading up to a one-on-one with an enemy leader.

I used to agonize over trying to develop rules to address this when I first started role playing, because I grew up playing table-top wargames and started with the old Chainmail rules a couple years before discovering D&D. There are lots of existing war rules that could work fine if you want to run some battles. There are a couple of problems to be aware of, if you plan on having large battles involved in your rpg sessions, though:

1. Large scale battles are not rpg's. It's a fun diversion every once in a while, but there really isn't any role playing involved, it's just wargaming. A fun hobby, but it's not role playing.
2. None of the character's abilities really serve them in a large scale battle the way they do in a dungeon setting. When the tides of a battle turn against their army, it's very easy to find the characters facing hundreds or even thousands of foes, unless you manipulate the results of the battle rules to prevent it. This means that you often find the characters in situations where they are hopelessly outnumbered, or it quickly becomes evident that there isn't much real risk involved because you are manipulating the battle outcome to prevent the hopelessly outnumbered scenario.

Your point is a valid one: large scale battles are difinitely a fundamental part of most of the literature, but you have to keep in mind that in the literature, the auther completely controls what happens, how it happens, who does what - everything. In a game setting, you cannot control most of those things without it becoming obvious that you are doing that, in which case it ceases to be a group activity and becomes a story-telling session.

What I have found works for me though, if I want to work warfare into the storyline of the campaign, is this approach: I run the portion of the battle where the characters are fighting as a large encounter with added narative about what the characters can see happening around them. Maybe the characters are part of the unit that is guarding (or assaulting) a gate in the city walls. I can describe the action around them as I run the repeated attacks by various enemies as a few encounters, just like I would if I was describing a dungeon setting and they were encountering the monsters as they explored.

I agree with many of the others, let the war rage on around the characters, but focus on the character actions. So if the character's side is attacking a castle, you build a set of encounters that directly impact the characters. The results of those encounters swing the tide of the battle overall one way or another.

For example, using the attacking the castle example. First, the character have reach the gatehouses in order to raise the gates to allow more of the attackers to swarm in. This could include scaling the walls, using a forgotten underground tunnel (protected by some guardian, it wasn't all that forgotten!) simply to reach the gatehouse. Describe the sounds and sights the character see as they do this, but their role is to reach the gatehouse.

Once at the gatehouse, they must deal with a set of elite guards or other guardian to reach the gate mechanism. This is a fun battle inside the gatehouse. The rest of the army is throwing themselves at the walls of the castle while the characters do this.

With the gatehouse taken, the battle moved beyond the castle walls and into the courtyard. Maybe another oversized beast is let loose by the enemy to slow the attacking army. The PCs see this and must move to aide in removing this latest threat. Once that threat is vanquished the battle continues in the courtyard, but at a pitch that allows the PCs to head into the castle!

Perhaps to the throne room or to a high parapet where the enemy army leaders direct their troops. All the while the battle of the armies wage below. Never forget to describe the surrounding environment, the sights, the sounds, etc. But the PCs are focused on accomplishing important and set goals to help turn the tide of the battle.

That's how I usually play out large scale combat these days. Heroes of Battle from 3.5 D&D can be useful for ideas as well.

I agree with the general sentiment above about not needing rules, but mixing the roleplaying with arbitrary battle results.

A good way to approach battles as a DM is the way that directors approach battle scenes in movies - focused bits of action within the battle. Think about Helm's Deep, for example: the PCs (Gimli, Aragon and Legolas) are instrumental in certain small scale scenes, and those get a lot of airtime, but they are essentially footnotes to the battle proper - except insofar as Aragon's leadership, which can easily be roleplayed ("Okay, they've breached the outer walls, and you realize that within minutes you're going to be outnumbered and surrounded. What do you do?"). Or the opening battle in Prince of Persia, where Dastan is responsible for opening the gate, but from there the results are out of his hands.

the battle rules that i enjoyed the most were the ones in the pendragon rpg. absolutely beautiful at portraying battlefield carnage and chaos.

also, while i was running extended wfrp campaig i used (twice) 7th sea battle rules. i mean it is more of a random chart than rules per se but it added nice twist to the game. these charts concentrate on PC actions depending on their position in the battle and on some rolls offer special opportunities for glory and plunder.

My two favorite mass combat systems are from Savage Worlds Deluxe and (oddly) from Heroes of Battle.

Heroes of Battle is probably the most appropriate for this kind of thing. Essentially, your side has a certain number of victory points to achieve for your side to win.

So if the PCs fight through enemy lines, kill the opposing general, sneak into the enemy camp and kill the evil king's sorcerer, and kill the evil king, your side automatically wins the battle. You might screw up one or two of those goals, but still get enough victory points for your side to win.

So you are always focused on he skirmish level action that the PCs are going through, but narrating the ebb and flow of battle depending on how the heroes are doing with their objectives. It doesn't really matter how the sides are armed or what tactics they use, because the heroes are going to be the ones that do all of the little objectives that make their side successful.

It's not a full scale war and tactics simulation, but it is in keeping with the spirit of adventurers making the world go 'round.

Take a look at Emirikol Was Framed, by Michael Curtis. Not huge masses in battle, but he deals with large numbers of NPC combatants in a way that works perfectly fine, and could scale to any battle you need run.

I guess Im gonna have to pick that one up before other modules now if it has rulez I can use for mass combat.

Anyone have any experience with this oldie?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battlesystem

Yep.

I've used 1e and 2e battlesystem.

hrmph, Im half tempted to pick up the Battlesystem 2e version and see if I can weld it to DCC. Maybe more rules than I want to deal with though. 120 pages of rulez are alot to deal with.

Battlesystem 2e is not as heavy as the page count would suggest - there are a lot of 1/4 and 1/2 page pictures used to aid in the explanation of rules on unit size, movement, and other things (says that guy that hasn't cracked the book in years and might be remembering Players Option: Combat & Tactics instead).

When playing an RPG, I prefer to focus on my character and his hirelings rather than direct entire armies. But that's just my preference.

guyz,

its the craziest thing. I was checking out Battlesystem info on the web and came across that there was another war system in BECMI called War Machine. Some describe it as more abstract and simpler than Battlesystem. Don't know much more about it. Battlesystem sounds like it does some weird stuff like divide the melee and missile phases, as in melee comes first than the arrows and such are fired. Not sure if that matters in the game and is just an organizational thing. I'd tink its weird if you enforced melee first, did damage and than allowed the arrows to fly from those still around after melee.

I also ran across this:
Swords & Spells
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swords_%26_Spells

which appears to have been the original battle rules for OD&D(correct me if I'm wrong!). Was it supplement V? I had no idea this existed back then.

Like folks said, there are a lot of systems out there. I'm leaning towards the rules from the DnD Rules Cyclopedia from the early eighties. It's probably one of the systems mentioned above. I'd definitely want to go with a non 3.x version.

cthulhudarren wrote:Like folks said, there are a lot of systems out there. I'm leaning towards the rules from the DnD Rules Compendium from the early eighties. It's probably one of the systems mentioned above. I'd definitely want to go with a non 3.x version.

Minor correction so that people don't go completely crazy searching: the only thing call "rules compendium" for D&D is a book each for 3.5 and 4th edition... but D&D (not AD&D) had a Rules Cyclopedia released in the early '90s, which was actually at the end of the D&D line.

TheNobleDrake wrote:

cthulhudarren wrote:Like folks said, there are a lot of systems out there. I'm leaning towards the rules from the DnD Rules Compendium from the early eighties. It's probably one of the systems mentioned above. I'd definitely want to go with a non 3.x version.

Minor correction so that people don't go completely crazy searching: the only thing call "rules compendium" for D&D is a book each for 3.5 and 4th edition... but D&D (not AD&D) had a Rules Cyclopedia released in the early '90s, which was actually at the end of the D&D line.

Is that what it is called? My mistake. Yes, it is the D&D book with EVERYTHING in it.

I tink the Rule Cyclopedia has the reprint of BECMI WarMachine in it.

dark cauliflower wrote:I tink the Rule Cyclopedia has the reprint of BECMI WarMachine in it.

It absolutely does.

catseye yellow wrote:the battle rules that i enjoyed the most were the ones in the pendragon rpg. absolutely beautiful at portraying battlefield carnage and chaos.

I'll second that. Pendragon's battle rules have always been my favorite as well. I've adapted them to numerous other games across the years.

mythfish wrote:

catseye yellow wrote:the battle rules that i enjoyed the most were the ones in the pendragon rpg. absolutely beautiful at portraying battlefield carnage and chaos.

I'll second that. Pendragon's battle rules have always been my favorite as well. I've adapted them to numerous other games across the years.

are you talking the stuff in the rpg book or the Book of Battle?
http://www.gspendragon.com/bookofbattle.html

dark cauliflower wrote:are you talking the stuff in the rpg book or the Book of Battle?

I mostly played the first edition, and I don't recall which book the mass combat rules were in back then. I haven't looked in depth at more recent editions, so I don't know how much it has changed. The description of the Book of Battle you posted sounds like it's fairly similar to what I remember.