Mass combats in gamebooks

[Solo]

I've recently refreshed my memories from Sagard the Barberian gamebook series. The thing that strikes me most in this series is the way of solving mass combats. It's simple, effective and gives the feeling of "fighting in the crowd". I'm still looking for a perfect gamebook combat system, where hundreds of units would be involved although this one is close...
What do you think of it? Do you have any other favorites in this matter?

[M. J. Young]

I am not familiar with that one.

I had good luck with BattleSystem for Basic Dungeons & Dragons. It handled units quite well, and integrated individual heroes into them effectively.

In Multiverser play, such battles are generally handled by focusing detailed play on that with which the player characters are directly involved and handling the rest of the battle by general effects rolls, essentially deciding how the tide of battle is turning beyond the immediate focus of the players.

--M. J. Young

[Pagrin]

Although I don't know these books either, I'm interested in how they deal with the problem. Generally all I do is use a narrative to describe the main battle, while the players interact with the local area they are in.
Because many of the plots I tend to deal with are epic in scale it would be nice to add a little more to these scenes however because I always feel the lack a little something.
Pagrin :-)

[Solo]

In this particular game, the thing is more than simple.

It's played in turns. After recognizing (check in the text ;)) how many adversaries take part in the battle, you roll a die for each of them. When rolling a certain number (let's say 4) they kill a single warrior from the other team. After the turn of this team, the your team (or more likely its remainders) comes into play and you roll for each of them. Then it's turn for your enemies and so on...

It can't be easier.

[Callan S.]

It sort of sounds like the dice pool mechanics games like vampire or riddle of steel use. 'Cept each individual has a bunch of dice and is going up against another individual with a bunch of dice in those.

I'm interested in how the shift of color presentation makes such a simple mechanic which could and has been highly associated with individual attacks in published games, become something which describes a group combat. Sure, a dice pool per individual isn't an established way of doing it, but it is kind of common. So why isn't there some sort of clash here where the group combat just feels like running one individual? If anyone gets what I mean, that is.

[Andrew Morris]

Callan, I think I get what you are saying. I'm also interested in finding a system that manages to stay consistent (ideally the same) at different scales. Basically, I'd like a game where the rules for one person attacking another are the same (or at least very similar) to the rules for one army attacking another. I don't know of any game that does this, so I'm hoping someone else has come across one that does.

[Mark D. Eddy]

Ironclaw/Jadeclaw does that, Andrew. They even have the Risk-like compare dice results on individual dice thing going. Both rulesets have how to resolve warfare tests in the same section as ambushes, trading, travelling and leadership.

It's an awesome system, even if it is about furries.

[simon_hibbs]

I used a similar mass combat approach for an operational level game I've run at conventions a few times. It's set in the Traveller universe and the players take the roles of prominent characters in a colony system that's under attack. Combats between troops, space fighters and such is resolved by rolling a handfull of D6s (one die for each soldier, space fighter, etc), and if they reach a certain target number, they score a 'hit' on an enemy unit. The performance of characters in combat is resolved using the normal combat system, wit things balanced so that characters will usualy significantly out perform average units.

For a more comprehensive system fro fantasy games you might check out a recent edition of Pendragon. It's had a mass battles system for some time now that handles the flow of the battle (IIRC) using a flowchart style approach, with the results determining the number and quality of opponents player characters have to fight hand-to-hand during the battle.


Simon Hibbs

[timfire]

This thread has inspred me a bit. How do y'all like this idea for dealing with mass combat:

Combat happens in rounds or 'flurries.' Each round is divded into 2 phases, an individual phase, and a mass combat phase.

Combat begins with the individual phase. This is normal combat with individual PC's.

Then, combat shifts to the mass combat phase. Here, combat between units of troops is determined any way you want. You can have some sort of die-pool, or you can effectively create 'characters' for each unit of troops and have then fight like normal PC's.

But here's the deal: The results of the mass combat phase somehow translates into a 'momentum' rating. When combat shifts back to the individual phase, this momentum rating can either be used as modifier to the PC's rolls, or it can somehow effect the types/ number of foes the PC's must fight.

I think this would work well in creating a feeling that the PC's were caught up in something larger than themselves.

(I wonder if any other games have come up with something simliar to this before.)

[Solo]

This thread has inspred me a bit. How do y'all like this idea for dealing with mass combat:

Combat happens in rounds or 'flurries.' Each round is divded into 2 phases, an individual phase, and a mass combat phase.

Combat begins with the individual phase. This is normal combat with individual PC's.

Then, combat shifts to the mass combat phase. Here, combat between units of troops is determined any way you want. You can have some sort of die-pool, or you can effectively create 'characters' for each unit of troops and have then fight like normal PC's.

But here's the deal: The results of the mass combat phase somehow translates into a 'momentum' rating. When combat shifts back to the individual phase, this momentum rating can either be used as modifier to the PC's rolls, or it can somehow effect the types/ number of foes the PC's must fight.

I think this would work well in creating a feeling that the PC's were caught up in something larger than themselves.

(I wonder if any other games have come up with something simliar to this before.)

Somehow? If you used an additional die roll to determine in which direction the battle-front moved (the "momentum"?), then you would be able to decrease/increase the chance of meeting an opponent for a hand-to-hand combat depending on whose "side" you're on at the moment.

And this would correspond to your number of foes, I guess. However, remember that you're not always exactly in the middle :)

There is a chance it will work.

[Valamir]

I recommend consulting Pendragon for the Archtypical way of handling mass combat in an RPG.

Individuals fighting opponents in the battle.
Individuals have opportunities for heroic effort and sacrifice in the battle
Individual actions effect battle outcome
Battle results effect individual outcomes

All in there.

Also see the early early proto RPG EnGarde for effective treatment of individual characters within a mass combat.

[Solo]

I recommend consulting Pendragon for the Archtypical way of handling mass combat in an RPG.

Individuals fighting opponents in the battle.
Individuals have opportunities for heroic effort and sacrifice in the battle
Individual actions effect battle outcome
Battle results effect individual outcomes

All in there.

Also see the early early proto RPG EnGarde for effective treatment of individual characters within a mass combat.

Thanks. I'll check it out.

[orbsmatt]

I have also attempted to make a simple combat system but have found it quite difficult given all the different aspects (races, sizes of armies, tactics, leadership, honour, etc. etc. etc.).

Maybe what would work would be to make a table (according to your system of course) that gives bonuses / penalties and then compares simple die rolls.

For example:

Attackers
Light Armour: +1
Medium Armour: +2
Heavy Armour: +3
2x the size: +1
3x the size: +2
etc. etc.

Defenders
Same stuff...

Then play it like Risk, allowing individual PCs to do their thing as well.  What the PCs do can affect the modifiers, and the results from the rolls affect the PCs (like the ideas stated above).

Just thinking out loud here.

[dewey]

And what if you ASK your players ''At what scale do you wish to make impact in the battle?" Then they roll something about "battle" or "tactics", not plain "weapon skill" and then they can narrate HOW they did what they did.

Oh, by the way, both success AND FAILURE operate at the same scale, once they've chosen it.

Or, the scale may be a choice from three possible ones: "battle", "partial", "personal". The first meaning the whole battle depends on them, the second meaning they don't decide the battle itself but a whole lot of people's lives, the last meaning they do some duels and generally try to survive.

At the "battle" scale the outcome depende on the players.
At "partial" and "personal" scale the GM rolls for the two armies (groups) and modifies the players' rolls based on whether they are on the final winning side or the losing one.

[b_bankhead]

This discussion of the place of mass combat reminds me of an Traveler campaign a good friend played in. At the time there was a new Traveler universe space wargame called Fifth Frontier War. The map of the wargame was the standard 'Spinward Marches' Traveler sector used in all the writeups in the then extant Journal of the Traveler's Aid Society.

The wargame map was used as the campaign map. Every couple of weeks the Gm and a friend would get together and play a couple of rounds of the wargame and he would keep careful records of what happened and where.

This gave the rpg campaign the quality of being dynamic while at the same time following self constent rules, and incorpating events at a scale much larger than that of the characters.  The might jump back to their homeworld and find the zhodani have taken over, then jump into the middle of the big imperial fleet massing for the attack, then right into the wrckage strewn aftermath of a major fleet action....it was the best example of the union of wargame and rpg I have ever seen, and it suggests an interesting concept, board wargames,economics games, etc as 'simulators' for large scale campaign changes.....