[Rq-rules] [RQIII]Mass combat

[Jim Bickmeyer]

> Interesting take on it, I like. Question though, how did you resove which
> side won?
> Tony

As the GM I determined which side won.  As the battle is an 'environment' I see it as the GM's job to decide the results.  Just like a storm at sea vs a ship with the players as crew.  There is some dice rolling.  Skill checks and then as GM I decide what the final result is.

This may sound snobbish.  Not what I intend.  The players trust me to provide them with a story for them to enjoy.  I trust them to go along with my story.  In the case of the big battle (which took place during the Dragon Kill War), they did change an outcome.  The right flank was suppose to be stalled by two dream dragons munching on lightly armored hoplites.  They killed one and chased the other off.  Thus the right flank advanced and started to turn to the center.  Of course I had already planned on a small True Dragon to bring the battle to an end.  So the end result remained.  But if that wasn't my end game, the overall battle could have ended different.

Now what happens if the players are commanders or even the general?  I lay out the battle and let the players make opposed rolls.  Then I treat each unit as if it was a NPC.  Give them attacks %, defense %, AP, HP...  Let the commanders winning the contested provide some bonuses for getting better ground, better placement of the units, ect...  Still I keep thing fairly abstract.  I stay away from turning it into a miniatures war game.   That way I could focus on the role playing of the battle and less on checking moment distance, reference moral charts and arguing that the block of skirmisher figures are not block by the corner of a friendly unit.

When the players were commanders, I still tried to get them into a fight.  Maybe they are attacked my a magicked moment unit, flyers, or while racing to rally a company that is on the verge of breaking.

Please understand, I am not trying to be a role player elitist.  I've played the RPG's that have miniture rules built in.  Many of them have a general, roll once to see if the PC dies/wounded/captured result.  I didn't like it when my PC died because I made one bad roll.  I'm don't expect my players to either.  I find that making the large battles a role playing environment is more fun.  And I can get through the battle in one night without spending it arguing about the rules and what really happened in ancient wars.

Jim

 
> > I’ve gone completely different with mass combat.  I consider the battle an
> > environment and role play the PC’s in that environment.  So, instead of
> > moving miniatures around the table, we role played the players roles in
> > the battle.   When they were in direct combat they rolled dice and played
> > RQ as normal.  Just with more targets than usual.
> >
> > It worked well.  They even managed to drop a Dream Dragon saving one flank
> > from being rolled up.  Well, that was until the True Dragon showed up.
> > Then the center fell and the flanks fled.
> >
> >
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