Narrative combat?

[Anonymous]

I see the Free Companies has a narrative mass combat system. Can that be used in the place of the number crunching one? And it is a narrative system, could anyone give me an idea of how a narrative combat system would work?

thanks
d

 

[Fyrestryke]

I believe Conan: Pirate Isles has narrative combat for ships. Other than that, I'm not sure how it actually works. I've played it, but not read it to understand it.

 

[Anonymous]

well what did that work like? did you roll, and modify the roll with BAB? Did the GM just make it up?

please esplain!

d

 

[skalvar]

Hey guys. Don't make me bore you with an explaination of the system by the writer. I know at least two of you have a fine theoritical understanding of it.

Shannon

 

[Anonymous]

but i want to know what it is like, so I know if i want to drop 24.95 just to have those rule mechanics (OH how I wish in this age of PDFs I could just buy the narrative combat rules as they appear in Free Companies...hint hint )

d

 

[skalvar]

I am not allowed to talk about anything in Free Companies until copies of it reach the players' hands.

RE: Pirate Isles
If none of our Conan scholars speak up before next Tuesday (my next scheduled visit to these boards) I will describe it to you. Really, though, I'd rather one of them do the honors. I wrote it, but I do not know what seems most important about the system from a reader-response standpoint. As readers and lovers of Conan, they can tell you exactly what you would want to know.

Shannon

 

[sbarrie]

As I recall, Narrative Combat involves a combination of regular combat and mass combat. The mass combat rules are used, but individual character actions influence the results. A character can enter the fray and kill enemies, they can rally their troops, they can call out the enemy captain, or a number of other actions. These actions are then integrated into the mass combat system, and players have the mass combat results described to them. You the GM only need to directly control those enemies (1d3?) very close to the PCs.

It's a combination of scales that I find appealing.

At least, that option's in Pirate Isles. I'm not sure if that's what's refered to as "Narrative Combat", and IDHMBIFOM.

If you don't have the Pirate Isles, get it. It's the best book in the series for a GM, IMHO.

 

[VincentDarlage]

I got The Free Companies the other day in the mail. The narrative system is fantastic but hard to describe. It makes combat very exciting and less of a unit-by-unit blow-by-blow mass combat system and more of a player-centric mass combat system.

By the way, what does IDHMBIFOM mean? Apparently I have fallen behind on cyber-speak.

 

[Tristan]

I Don't Have My Book In Front Of Me.

 

[sbarrie]

Let me try that explanation again.

1) The GM keeps track of how many combatants are on each side.
2) The players take their actions, possibly directly reducing the number of enemy combatants.
3) The GM makes rolls for each side, and the losing side takes more casualties than the winner. Player actions in step 2 may influence this roll.
4) If the losing side was reduced below a certain threshold, they disperse and the combat's over. Otherwise, go to step 2.

In Pirate Isles there were a lot of options for players. M. Kalvar writes great rules. He even thought to include a new Formation type for Soldiers.

 

[Anonymous]

that by far was the best description of the system so far. I think you may just have sold a copy of Free Companies.

thanks
d