Making a Mass Battle More Interesting

[ScottOden]

Hi All,

I'm looking for ways to make a mass battle more interesting for the player characters -- something more than just endless to hit and damage rolls. I'm getting ready to run a game where the players start out in the midst of a battle: one of the Shemitish city-states versus a Turanian army. I already know *how* the battle will end (Shem loses after suffering a betrayal from within), but I want the characters to do things, you know?

In the first phase, the characters (who are mercenaries for Shem) are dispatched to the right flank to dig in and hold. I have a Turanian champion calling out the strongest, then an opportunity to fight over the body of the fallen champion (assuming it's the enemy who bites it) in order to gain a morale bonus, followed by a withering arrow storm and a charge. In the second phase, the right crumbles after being betrayed and the players . . . the players what? My mind goes blank here.

Ultimately, the players are either captured by the Turanians and taken off in chains, or slip away to regroup at a haunted village before plotting their vengeance against those who betrayed them. But, I need some way to make the battle memorable.

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance!

Best,

Scott

 

[Spade]

So you want PC-scale combat, with large waves of the enemy? My fast and dirty approach:

Rescale combat rounds to last approximately 30 seconds. Give the PC's more narrative freedom, and declare that every Hit Point of damage they do with their weapons is converted to one dead enemy. For stronger foes, make the conversation ratio two or three hit points.

Because this is an awesome "Hold Your Ground" scene, the heroes only take 1d12 damage per round. Every round, have them roll an Endurance check as though they were running to avoid going up the Fatigue status tree.

- Spade

 

[Oly]

Have you seen the battle system in the Free Companies book? I’ve seen several mass combat systems and that is, I believe, my favourite system.

It’s not a war game, it doesn’t run the battle in detail. What it does provide is an abstract system for dealing with the flow of a battle. It then has the PCs doing what are basically small adventures with the battle as a background, the outcome of the adventure will affect a portion of the battle. The idea is that the PCs aren’t just there in the shield wall grinding away at the enemy but are instead running around having “heroic” moments and taking part in those events on which a battle can pivot. Think sneaking out of the sally port in the Two Towers movie rather than just standing on the wall hitting people coming up.

For example in a recent battle I had the players doing small adventures such as fighting an enemy champion, defending a smashed gate while it was reinforced and seizing an enemy standard. Each of those is a standard encounter with no particular special rules.

There were four flanks in the last battle and the PCs basically charged around with their efforts either reinforcing a section that seemed to be in trouble or taking advantage of somewhere that was on the verge or a breakthrough.

All told it worked really rather well.

However you do need to be clear what the system is not.

As said it’s not a detailed war game, it won’t game out the bigger battle except in a fairly abstract way.

It’s also not a realistically gritty representation of a battle. The heroes are out doing heroic things rather than just slogging along with all the other foot soldiers. I didn’t run it until my players were a reasonably high level, perhaps with lower level characters that level of action, freedom and influence on a battle just wouldn’t make sense.

However as said all things told I’m a big fan of the system, it gave me the sort of battles with the sort of focus that I wanted for my Conan games.

 

[ScottOden]

Hey, thanks for the replies, Spade and Oly!

Unfortunately, I don't have the Free Companies book. I'm using the Atlantean core, the mass battles rules that were free online, and the Road of Kings book (and a rather large library of books on ancient and medieval warfare).

The situation is an ambush, but one where the army of Shem has a chance to get into line of battle. The PCs are sent to the right flank, where they find a rather gaping hole left by the defection of a troop of Zuagir mercenaries. The Shemitish troops center-right thin themselves out to cover it. The PCs get hammered: a champion calls out the strongest; if the PC wins, a fight over the champion's corpse ensues; an arrow storm presages the enemy charge; they have to stave off both a reckless charge forward and a rout, and finally they are overrun in the wake of an allied champion's death. The PCs fall back toward the center, where they see their commander about to be overrun, as well . . . and they also see (providing they make their spot checks) an enemy force at their rear, looting the baggage, while their Queen's advisor ("the Red Priest of Bel") is engaged in handing the Queen over to an enemy commander. From there, they can choose to try and rescue the Queen (certain death) or rescue their own mortally-wounded commander and get him clear of the field.

If they do the latter, he's going to charge the PCs with taking vengeance upon the Red Priest and rescuing the Queen, who is destined for the harems of Yildiz in Aghrapur.

Structure-wise, it breaks down to four phases with three encounters per phase. By the end of the first session, the players should be clear of the field with a dying commander in tow . . .

Scott

 

[decker423]

If you can find the original "Legends of the Five Rings" book that'll help you out. On mass combat, they treat it the same except the PCs are in a "local pocket" of the overall battle. Depending on certian rolls and what they choose to do, they can "move" into "key" (AKA lots of blood, higher chance of injury/death, higher chance of gaining glory and honor) "pockets" and may affect the outcome of the battle.
Key events or "pockets" include:

Hold the line at a critical push
Penetrate the enemy line
Stop an enemy penetration
Get singled out for a one on one duel
Save the commander or other important officer and get him back to the rear
Protect the army standard
Steal the enemy standard
Face an enemy charge
Attack of opportunity (basically) on enemy archers, magicians, key commanders
Protect the army general at the tide of the battle
Retreive your standard before your army routs
Take out a siege weapon
Defend your "hospital" area
Assassinate the enemy general
Take out the enemy's logistical rear


Those are some examples but it's still basically the PCs vs. NPCs (or monsters) in the midst of something larger (aka the battle). Also, read the Conan stories themselves, he's good on giving bloody, brutal examples of mass combat.

The second adds flavor or coloring to the overall game. The first actually keeps it somewhat simple for the GM while still "empowering" the players or letting them "think/feel" that their actions have an impact on a larger battle. I think it's good for PCs to think and feel that they've contributed to the overall "big picture".

 

[ScottOden]

Thanks, Decker! Great stuff!

I actually picked up Free Companies last night. A thunderstorm w/hail hit as I was driving and I found myself in close proximity to a game store I don't frequent often. I stopped, scurried inside, and started browsing. Lo, there on the shelf they had Free Companies, the Compendium, the Black Kingdoms book, and the book on Shem! I snatched up FC, as I'm not one to risk offending the gods -- who obviously wanted me to add Free Companies to my library, else why bring the rain in this particular neighborhood?

Best,

Scott

 

[Yogah of Yag]

FC was one of my first purchases a few years ago, and, thinking it to be mass combat rules, I was mostly disappointed.
The D&D BECMI series had a decent set of (quick) mass combat rules, called War Machine, IIRC.
Being a serious wargamer I prefer to get the PCs involved in low-level skirmish rules, or instead as part of a higher unit, as a company or even battalion.

As a wargamer (who is also immensely fond of RPG's) I feel the need to constantly apologise for this when among RPGers. If you are more of an RPGer and a GM who knows the end result of the engagement, you can probably create a nice, comfortable compromise between the needs of an RPG session and some (select) elements of wargaming to everyone's satisfaction. In either event, have fun with it and your players will have wonderful memories for years to come! 8)

 

[Oly]

FC was one of my first purchases a few years ago, and, thinking it to be mass combat rules, I was mostly disappointed.
The D&D BECMI series had a decent set of (quick) mass combat rules, called War Machine, IIRC.
Being a serious wargamer I prefer to get the PCs involved in low-level skirmish rules, or instead as part of a higher unit, as a company or even battalion.

If you're looking for wargaming type rules then what you get from the Free Companies will disappoint, that's not the sort of area that the rules set out to cover.

The FC rules set out to give you a system with which you can paint the backdrop of a large battle with pretty sweeping strokes while allowing the focus to stay on the actions of your PCs.

For a battle where you want to know how outnumbered a unit of the army is while semi-realistically taking account of terrain, flanking, morale, supplies, troop quality and ranged weapons then you're going to be disappointed.

For a battle where you happy to simply say "um, OK, I'll give the left flank of the army a +2" and then immediately shift your attention back to what the character's are doing then you'll probably be satisfied.

It's a question of where you want your detail and focus, and there's no right answer for that.

The FC provides a narrative driven answer that allows for some simulation of what's happening in the battle without it overwhelming everything else that's going on.

Most definitely not for everyone and I myself was sceptical but after trying it out I found it that it really hit the nail on the head for my campaign.

 

[decker423]

It also depends on the GM as to whether or not he/she really cares about the outcome of the battle (and hence the future of the PCs). If the outcome is already set in the GM's mind to add flavor, advance a story plot, add to the storyline, etc. then rules are irrelevant. That's my opinion.
If the GM and the PCs don't care who wins and the outcome of the battle (will they flee as stragglers of a routed army or pillage as the conquering heroes/bastards?) then throw all the game mech into it.
My opinion.