I don't know if Brian Gleichman is a dirty name around here (he has said some mean and nasty things about RoS) but I have just been reading his articles about tactics at rpg.net and had them combine with some ideas about RoS mass combat that have been churning in my head. I have no idea if Jake already knows the shape of his mass combat system but, even if so, maybe this will provide some interesting ideas to people working such things out on their own. I lack enough free time right now to flesh this out into a full system, so it will most likely remain skeletal on it's own accord. Anyway, enough rambling introduction.

Although RPGs frequently have "mass combat systems," there is rarely any acknowledgement that there are really two levels of non-personal combat -- the tactical and the strategic. Most games focus solely on the tactical, but the strategic level is actually far more important (resulting in phrases like "winning the battle, but losing the war.")

Thus, I think that a satisfactory mass combat engine will model both the tactical and strategic levels of warfare. Ideally, the strategic level should be to the tactical level as the tactical level is to the personal level, and it should be possible to interpret each strategic roll as a simplified group of tactical rolls, and each tactical roll as a simplified group of personal rolls. Simply put, each die result in tactical combat could represent the outcome of a personal combat (or small number of personal combats), and similarly with strategic and tactical. If you had the time, you could roll out all the personal combats to decide tactical outcomes, and the tactical system would still be useful as a framework for doing so.

Right.

So, the basic idea for the tactical system is such -- it is first and foremost very similar to the personal combat system, but designed to cover situations where the personal combat system would become obnoxiously difficult to resolve -- groups of 20 - 500 people. These people would be divided into "squads," probably by what weapons they are using. I imagine that, in trying to model the strong advantage that RoS gives to outnumbering your opponents, the size of the squad would determine the number of dice, whereas the skill of the squad would determine it's attack and defense difficulties, as well as its resistance to damage (toughness, more or less.)
Each squad, depending on what type it was and the skill level of the commander, would have access to different "techniques" such as "charge" for cavalry or "hold the line" or pikemen. These techniques would be quite powerful, as you would only be able to commit dice from troops that had access to them (a cavalry charge should be able to frighten sword infantry even if the infantry outnumber the cavalry by 3 to 1.)
Wounding: Shock represents casualties, and is taken from whatever unit was used to defend from the attack. "pain" represents the confusion following a strong attack, and is spread throughout the entire group.
Pool refresh, as usual, is automatic.
Conceivably, the commander could have to make a skill check to pull of more esoteric techniques.
Spiritual attributes could be added if and only if a vast majority of the squad, and the commander, have the same or similar spiritual attribute coming into play. Further, the gift "true leadership" allows the commander to add his spirituals.
Rounds are probably 5 minutes each.

That's about it for tactical level.

Now the strategic level. Sadly, this is the place where you really need to start using a map.

The strategic level is for when the tactical level becomes obnoxious -- 400 - 20,000 man armies. On the strategic level, there are really only two types of troops -- armies and navies. These are, most likely, best handled as seperate "attackers" with different people controlling them, so there is no real need for different techniques to different troops. If you really wanted, you could have different army "types" with different "techniques," but I don't really see that such is necessary, and unecessary muddling sucks. There are general techniques, though, available from the skill of the general.
Essentially, you have armies. Each one has a dice pool determined strictly by size. Experience is largely unimportant, as most large armies are most greens and conscripts, but an experienced army could have bonuses to ATN or toughness. The DTN is strictly determined by the terrain the army inhabits, and quite possibly the ATN as well.
You can split your armies dice pool into assorted groups, and have different ones in different places. Nonetheless, for simplicity, an entire army is considered to have "initiative" or not at any given time. The attacker declares any number of "strikes" to different territories, and the defender must then allocate armies in defense of those strikes. Results are rolled, armies killed, etc, as normal RoS combat. Different techniques would cover attacks that are to occupy territory, raze an area, or just kill enemy troops.
The real kicker is this -- your armies don't refresh automatically. You must provide them food (from the area they are on or with convoys) in order to buy a refresh. Further, as an optional rule, armies that are not fed for multiple turns could go "bandit" and simply occupy the territory and ravage the peasants.
Spiritual attributes do not generally apply in strategic combat, but a general with the gift "true leadership" can apply them.
That's all on strategic.


anyway. Comments?

yrs--
--Ben

Ben,

I like the general approach that you have. I would place more emphasis on opposed rolls using strategy and tactics skills. The skills exist, so they should have a big role (otherwise what's the point of having them). Various modifiers for things like tactics, troop morale, troop experience, weapons & armor, and army size could add dice to these rolls. The level of success could affect damage to each side. Eg. at the tactical level, pikemen who 'hold the line' vs. a cavalry charge might get +2 dice. The cavarly might lose dice for running headlong into wedge of spears. Winning by 3 might mean 10% losses for the winner, and 30% losses for the loser. Winning by 5 might mean 5% losses for the winner and 50% losses for the loser.

I think I would reverse the shock and pain use. Shock could represent temporary, recoverable losses. Pain permanent losses. This more closely follows regular combat. One might use a leadership roll to recover shock losses (reorganize the unit). % success = immediate recovery, 3 successes = after one round.. or something like that. I might also let the number of sucesses from a leadership roll add dice to the strategy or tactics rolls. That way, SA's could be added directly to the rolls like normal....

You left out the level of the individual. What happens to the individual PCs in combat? I had thought of (1) a battle roll to avoid random damage from things like arrows, and (2) some sort of CP vs. a likely opponent.

I think that I would also find a way to combine the two. That way in a bit battle, several PCs can be involved. If a PC (other than the army commander) heads a unit, the number of tactical success could add (or subtract from) the number of strategic success. If a PC wins his opposed tactical skill roll by 1, there is no effect at the stratigic level. If the PC wins by 3+ an additional success is added to the strategy roll. If the PC wins by 5+, 2 success are added. If the PC loses....success are subtrated similarly...

One thing that I haven't been able to figure out how to add in is the effect of armor and mobility in certain situations. In general armor shoud prevent damage. However, if an army is routed, heavy troops will have a harder time escaping than light troops. Likewise cavarly would suffer less damage that infantry...oh well.

Any way those are my thoughts...NT

Interesting. I've actually been working on Mass Combat lately (in-between bouts with the Character Generator and Combat Sim). Some of your thoughts are very close to what I have been doing.

Brian.

Brian Leybourne wrote: Interesting. I've actually been working on Mass Combat lately (in-between bouts with the Character Generator and Combat Sim). Some of your thoughts are very close to what I have been doing.

toli wrote: Ben, I like the general approach that you have. I would place more emphasis on opposed rolls using strategy and tactics skills. The skills exist, so they should have a big role (otherwise what's the point of having them). Various modifiers for things like tactics, troop morale, troop experience, weapons & armor, and army size could add dice to these rolls.

toli wrote:
You left out the level of the individual. What happens to the individual PCs in combat? I had thought of (1) a battle roll to avoid random damage from things like arrows, and (2) some sort of CP vs. a likely opponent.

Ben Lehman wrote: As far as the strategy and tactics skills, I quite forgot about them (my RoS is presently 3000 miles away.) I am torn between wanting to make them useful and not wanting to make them TOO useful, because they are skills, and should not substitute for actual player ingenuity or the capacity of the military force.

Ben Lehman wrote: Don't know if you're at liberty to share them, but I would certainly be interested in seeing where we agree / differ.

Ben Lehman wrote: As far as the strategy and tactics skills, I quite forgot about them (my RoS is presently 3000 miles away.) I am torn between wanting to make them useful and not wanting to make them TOO useful, because they are skills, and should not substitute for actual player ingenuity or the capacity of the military force.

Brian Leybourne wrote:
They should most certainly substitute for player ingenuity. People with very poor RL tactical skills should not be penalised when they want to take a battle commander, just as people who player a lot of wargames and think well strategically IRL shouldn't be able to get away with doing well in battle despite not spending the points on those kinds of skills.

Ben Lehman wrote: Anyway... I suppose it is a difference of opinion here, and both sides are pretty valid. --Ben

Ben, I really like your squad combat ideas; I think it has the makings of a decent skirmish system. The idea of 'units have skills' was in RM's War Law, and gave long-term campaigns a huge motivation to train, train, train.

And therein lies the weakness in your 'strategic' level: numbers are no valid use for unit strengths. History is replete with examples of smaller, well-trained units beating much larger forces. The Roman Legions routinely beat forces of extreemely warlike people many times their number because of training, equipment, and tactitcs.

IMO, as an RPG GM, what is needed is three things:

1) A skirmish system to resolve fights too large to handle with the game system. Say 30-40 per side. *

2) A battle system to resolve fights of 50-250 per side range (roughly; figure Goblins would field more, Ogres less). *

* = Both systems should allow interaction and effect on the battle by multiple (a party) of Pcs in leadership roles. Such as the Party Leader in command, with PCs commanding sub-units. And be quick & clear.

3) A quick way of resolving mass battles which covers general factors. This would be to preserve GM imparttiality; the GM would 'resolve' the battle by die rolls in a few minutes, and then work the PCs through the events in narrative style. FFor this, there' a good system in the Shengoku rules. I used it for a large battle in which the PCs were guarding one commander's heir. The battle was too large for a band of adventurers to affect, so their part came when their side collapsed...the idea was good, but lacking a decent & quick skirmish system, I didn't get as much out of the system as I hoped.

You can download their mass combat rules (for Sengoku) for free here:

http://www.goldrushgames.com/downloads.html

Its pretrty for for #3 in my above post.

Ben's approach is the most thought out of the bunch, and obviously the product of some work.

I ran several tactical level combats in WFRP. The advantage here is that i happen to also be a WFB player (WFRP got me into WFB) and so knew what the stats were for the various troops and could resolve combats the party were not involved in fairly quickly and accurately, with a few simple d6 rolls.

For combats the characters did get involved in, i used the standard combat rules for the PCs, and the simplified rules for the NPcs. The party wound up doing better than the NPCs since they could do assorted levels of wounds as opposed to the simple "hit, wound, save" that i was rolling for the NPCs. Which is as it should be, the characters were heroes and should be more 'killy" on the battlefield.

This worked very well since the two systems are relatively interchangable.

For something like TROS, where it has Strategy and Tactics skills, well, things get a little stickier. Characters should have some effect on the tactical level. On the strategic level though, unless they are in command of the army, their actions won't have too much effect on the battlefield. At this stage, characters should be involved in small raiding actions, scouting, assassination missions.....if they want to get involved in frontline fighting, then a simple roll to determine what happened to them may be all that's necessary 'i.e." oops, you died. Well, you knew there was a good chance of happening before you went out. Sorry.If you like, you can spend a Luck to stay alive." A little harsh, but a reality. Warn the players, first, of course.

A simple roll or 6 for every day or week or whatever of fighting will resolve overall strategic actions.

Tactically, a character's leadership, in telling the unit to 'Go that way! Kill those archers before they slaughter our knights!" and individual fighting skills will have a decent effect. It will take a combination of quick rolls and individual combat to properly resolve these levels of conflict.

Brian Leybourne wrote:

Ben Lehman wrote: As far as the strategy and tactics skills, I quite forgot about them (my RoS is presently 3000 miles away.) I am torn between wanting to make them useful and not wanting to make them TOO useful, because they are skills, and should not substitute for actual player ingenuity or the capacity of the military force.

They should most certainly substitute for player ingenuity. People with very poor RL tactical skills should not be penalised when they want to take a battle commander, just as people who player a lot of wargames and think well strategically IRL shouldn't be able to get away with doing well in battle despite not spending the points on those kinds of skills.

In battle, the "Tactics", "Strategy", and of course "Battle" skills should be very important.

Just my 2c.

Brian.

Re: Noon's previous post

The thing with TROS is that all three modes appear in one form or another (it was written without any "theory" in mind...just the way I like to play). I think that narrativist issues should be wildly important just to give the battles the proper drama. I think that the "thinking it out" thing (gamist? simulationist?) is a staple of the TROS mindset--that the player's decisions are worth more than his dice. The skills are there however to model characters that are better at something then a player is (just as not all proficiencies are equal in dice).

It needs to:
-have a strong narrativist slant
-demand hard decisions and put fate in the players hands more than the characters
-be fun

Jake

Jake Norwood wrote: Re: Noon's previous post

The thing with TROS is that all three modes appear in one form or another (it was written without any "theory" in mind...just the way I like to play). I think that narrativist issues should be wildly important just to give the battles the proper drama. I think that the "thinking it out" thing (gamist? simulationist?) is a staple of the TROS mindset--that the player's decisions are worth more than his dice. The skills are there however to model characters that are better at something then a player is (just as not all proficiencies are equal in dice).

It needs to:
-have a strong narrativist slant
-demand hard decisions and put fate in the players hands more than the characters
-be fun

Jake

Wuhaa for mass combat! I love wargames, so this is a topic that lights my fire.

So my thoughts... First, there needs to be some extremely streamlined version of just basic ROS combat, for small squad-based tacticals. Ie, you have 5 mounted knights against 3 bandits and a giant, who wins? (without going insane plotting out the resulting combat roll for roll) In some ways, that's the hardest question for me to address without a lot more playtesting. Have to find an adequate formula to boil down all those dice into a few modified rolls, and probably throw out or simplify the damage charts. Gonna have to think alot more about that one.

But then there needs to be what a lot of people have already addressed: a combat system for full on, Agincourt-Stirling Bridge-ChiBi battles.

So people have already said alot about mass combat and how it should at least partially reflect the ROS system of single combat, which is an awesome idea and how it should be done, by the Gods! But ever since I've been thinking about this (which is since I picked up TROS and read it fully), I've had a few ideas...

- Generally, if two armies line up and hack at each other, it's going to become a brawl where the better-fed, better-trained, better-equiped, and largest army wins. But armies rarely just line up in equal lines. Then I started thinking about analogies between single ROS combat and a theoratical mass combat rules engine. And I saw a connection between Stances, and Formations. Something that would be chosen before battle even fully closed, but would have a profound effect on the turn of the battle, especially in the first few moments. This would probably end up more complicated than just the two stances for single combat. You could come up with different formations with different rules effects for just about forever. The question is where you decide to hold the line (heh... So to speak. :) Some formations could also be maintained for longer than just the initial moments of combat, another departure from the basic Stance idea (formations like spearheads or shieldwalls). An army could then attempt to break an opposing army's formation and thereby gain a tactical advantage. Which emphasizes an important attribute that should be included in an army's vitals: Discipline.

-And moving on to another topic involving discipline and army organization: Chain of command and communication. For example, if you have 500 men who are all waiting for a command from a single leader, chances are they're only going to get one (possibly two) orders for the entire combat. If on the other hand, those 500 men are divided into various squads (the size depending on the scale you want to run the battle at), each with their own commanding officers, and you have runners or other reliable communications, then you have a much more flexible army at your disposal. Barbarian hordes vs. the Roman Legions, say. On the flip side, if communication breaks down or a CO is downed in combat, then the squad could only follow their last order, or go AWOL (which is maybe more likely, considering the hit to morale this could be. Another use for army discipline). So I think one nice thing to include in damage charts for mass combat would be potential loss of a CO. It would also be a way for PCs to do something in mass combat that could have a real, quantifiable game effect, hunting down and dueling with enemy leaders. Also, it could be possible to not only quantify an army's stats based solely on the rank-and-file, but also on the quality and training of it's CO's. Whew... I could yammer on some more about this subject, but it's getting late, so I'll move on. :)

Geez... So much more I want to talk about, but it's getting late, and I'm disorganized. Well, I'm curious to hear people's ideas. Have a good one, folks!

Here are some battle report links to see how some other wargames play, for ideas on how TROS's mass combat system might want to work.

http://www.saga-publishing.com/afteractionreports.htm
http://www.indiawargamers.com/reports/index.html
http://www.piquet.org/battles.htm

Scott

...on how players work into a mass-combat system.

Personally, I don't think the player-characters should be abstracted on any level.

Where they are in the battle needs to be a normal-scale environment where the shooting and stabbing happens normally. I don't want to lose my character to a scale-shift.

Think of it in these terms: Armies are composed of vast numbers of unimportant mooks, and a handful of really story-important people.

These story-important people move among the squads (possibly as a single squad) and engage in personal-level combat with groups of mooks while trying to carve their way to the leader/escape the fray/whatever.

This keeps the focus on the PCs, rather than their army.

Bob, I couldn't agree more (and that's twice in a lifetime... worlds will shatter, stars will fall, etc *grin*).

PC actions are very important in mass combat. After all, why else are having the combat if it's not because the PC's have a personal stake in it.

Brian.

What Bob is describing is the way I'd run most battles involving PCs. The battle is really just a backdrop for what the PCs are doing. On the other hand, some people will want their PCs commanding units and armies, and that is where the mass combat rules that will be featured in TFoB come in.

By the way.. I'm getting a sense that these rules will be elegant enough that another purely gamist approach to TRoS may be born.. TRoS the wargame.

How sweet is that?

Wolfen wrote: By the way.. I'm getting a sense that these rules will be elegant enough that another purely gamist approach to TRoS may be born.. TRoS the wargame.

How sweet is that?

Ben Lehman wrote: There already is a strong gamist element in TRoS -- the combat engine. (where, by Gamist, I here mean "solidly designed as a game abstract from any role-playing purpose") It is enormously fun to play as a "duelling game," and I have known people to just make characters to duel them. Of course, you need to alter the chargen system a bit...

An army is flexible depending on its makeup & leadership. That translates better IMO, to the magic system, than to a lot of the personal combat system.


*Strategy mechanics*
Master generals w/ crack armies can muster intricate tactics that are a combination of several specific objectives. If we use a system similar to the magic system that allows the player to blend multiple elements into a single act, I believe a very flexible, strategy-oriented system can be created that is also very reactive to PCs as Heroes.

The commanders would organize a strategy for the round based on the stratagems (the mass combat 'vagaries') that they have available to them through their personal ability. The type and quality of the army would influence the chance of the strategy's success (modifications, max. dice limits, etc.). The two strategies, after modifications (including SAs), would then have 2 opposed rolls of some kind; 1 for each side's intended strategy.

The point is that these categories are blended and (re)prioritized over time to create strategy over the course of a battle.


*Army mechanics*
The role of the actual army in this is to
(1) give modifiers for certain kinds of strategems (due to training, or a
presence/lacking of certain kinds of units)
(2) be used in comparison to the other army (size, which I would handle
in a way similar to the multiple opponents rule)
(3) take damage (form & degree depends on what strategy succeeds on
it), which will affect how the army's role next turn.

I'm afraid that this is going to come out sounding a lot more argumentative than I intend it to: Mass combat for TROS should not be a wargame. To me, the term 'wargame' implies things like Warhammer, or recreating a Civil War battle... an activity separate from roleplaying. Commanding an army must somehow be an act of roleplaying as well as strategizing, and the mechanics must reflect that. Complexity is not necessarily bad, but what is being detailed and why are important questions.

The way TROS tries to do that with everything else is through Spiritual Attributes, and I see no reason to stop now. Highly trained armies should be given their own spiritual attributes which the commanders can tap into if the commander gives the right orders. These SAs would increase as the army acts according to them (i.e. Orcs creating wanton destruction). Points from these SAs could then be used to rally the troops, regroup, or train when not in battle.

I'm not very good at crunching mechanics (I don't post in most of the combat threads for a reason), but this is an important thread for TROS right now, I suppose. I liked a lot of the suggestions people have thrown out on how to damage military units, and this was my stab at the 'narrative' element Jake reminded us he wants.

I should also mention everything in my post was assuming the PCs are commanders of a force. If the PCs are strictly participants, then IMO mass combat rules should be put on the shelf. If there is a special mission the players have, then the battle may depend on them. If they do not, then they're in the middle of a terrible storm and need to survive it.

Heh... that'd be a fun way to start a campaign: "Gelure just routed the Farrenshire army. All of you, and about X other people from various units managed to end up in a gully that has given you a few moments of cover. You do not know how long it is before the Gelurois will it, however..."