I'm working on a game borrowing theme and setting ideas from the strategy video game franchise Fire Emblem. Particularly I would like to emulate the peppy pace, endearing characters and the sense of grand, history-making events pivoting on the outcome of every battle. It was great for framing a strategy game on the console and I think it could bring the same benefits to the tabletop.

For the battles themselves, I'm thinking of using Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition, largely unmodified. I make this decision primarily to make the game an easier sell to a group, which is of critical importance in my small local gaming community. I've only played a brief demo of the game, but it seems to both run pretty smoothly and lack rules that would seriously get in the way of what I'm trying to do. I know I can't sneak up on mode, guys, I intend to be very upfront about what I'm trying to do.

Now, some general thoughts on actually accomplishing this! First off, Fire Emblem games (and they share this with most console strategy games with an RPG-ish bent) are divided into chapters, generally centering on one battle. The exposition scenes framing the battle follow a more or less set sequence, with an introductory scene interrupted by some sort of crisis demanding immediate fighty response. This of course leads to the battle, and from there a short epilogue summarizing the averted crisis and usually a hint towards what our intrepid heroes are off to do next.

One thing I definitely want to take from this structure is the crisis situation appearing suddenly but predictably in the midst of the light characterization stuff early in the chapter. We are not going to hang around town until everyone gets everything they want from the store or plays around at the inn. Something bad's gonna go down, we all know it, and when it does we drop everything and rally the troops! The instigating event isn't necessarily the GMs job to initiate or narrate. In fact, I would prefer if anybody could call for the crisis to commence, perhaps by using a conspicuous gesture like knocking on the table.

My biggest stumbling point right now is connecting success or failure in individual battles to the overarching events that escalate over the course of the campaign. I most definitely don't want to leave the escalation or the contribution of a battle being won or lost to GM hand-waving. My current thought is having a track for each big event the players are battling for or against, with a certain amount of units being staked in each fight. I've considered possibly allowing players to determine how much they want to put at stake, with the difficulty of the fight increased for bigger stakes.

This is all I have that's really coherent at this point, more to come shortly. I'd appreciate a heads-up if anyone catches any immediate pit-falls I'm walking into here or matters about which I was less than clear.

Having played several games of 4th edition and a massive run of fire emblem (path of radiance, if you're interested) over the last several days, I think I can help you out here.

Your ideas for escalating the conflict sound OK at this point, but I do have a comment about running the game using 4th edition. While fourth edition is a great game, and I consider it much better at doing D&D than 3rd edition, the style of play it generates is definitely not like fire emblem at all. In fire emblem, you have  lot of units, few special attacks, and high stakes battles where units will probably die in a few hits at most. In fourth edition, everyone is loaded with healing, special moves, and is very tough to take down. While this is all fine for dungeon crawling epic fantasy, it's not exactly suited for the fire emblem feel. (Although if you just want to emulate the pace and characters I suppose that you could use fourth edition, although the abilities wouldn't feel very much like it). You could probably emulate fire emblems own system without that much work, or just use a generic system (or even D&D 3rd edition would be more fitting for a fire emblem game).

Other than that, the ideas for escalating combat and such sounds good. Good luck with the game.