Which RPG has the best Mass Combat rules? Not counting Wargames focused solely on that.
Which RPG has the best Mass Combat rules? Not counting Wargames focused solely on that.
Which RPG has the best Mass Combat rules? Not counting Wargames focused solely on that.
None whatsoever. Most RPGs struggle even with skirmish scale combat, which is the thing they are supposed to be good at.
prowlers and paragons.
I thought of something for B/X that let groups of men attack each other with simple damage trade (i.e. if 50 men attack with 1d6 damage attacks against AC 9 and let's just say that mean a 40% chance to hit, then they would deal 20d6 damage to their target army and they would simultaneously deal likewise to them).
GURPS Mass Combat
<= What he said.
Gonna have to spell it out within this thread. If you're gonna convince me to read the rest of the book, layout all the mass combat rules here.
its a book on itself moron
None because most mass combat is 100% GM focused and most RPGs ignore the GM. Now, if we're doing mass combat at the hands of players it just literally becomes a wargame or something weird (which player control the army after all? Do they all control separate armies? Do they vote on what happens? How do you ensure each feels like they've contributed with respect to this?)
Often mass combat is regulated to essentially montaged skill challenges with tiny combats fluttered inside for the players. Really it's no different than how videogames handle mass combat (i.e., unless it's a war game, it's in the background or it's you doing a single critical mission behind lines or some shit).
Just have them control detachments of X units and treat the units like regular guys in battle, they take damage (casualties) and can be forced to retreat. So a party might lead an army of 12 detachments of a vague scale and each take control of three units with specific stats based on type (heavy cavalry, foot archers, etc.) they fight the GM and the PCs are an abstraction attached to units as commanders they can boost morale and risk getting wounded or killed (players take damage with their units adding in some extra randomness).
>Just have them control detachments of X units and treat the units like regular guys in battle, they take damage (casualties) and can be forced to retreat. So a party might lead an army of 12 detachments of a vague scale and each take control of three units with specific stats based on type (heavy cavalry, foot archers, etc.) they fight the GM and the PCs are an abstraction attached to units as commanders they can boost morale and risk getting wounded or killed (players take damage with their units adding in some extra randomness).
Sure you can do this, but it feels inorganic as frick. You literally are shifting into a different game which is closer to StarCraft. It just doesn't feel good AND it's shit when comes to party coordination which is a core aspect of RPGs.
I've played some mass combats. They feel BAD. They play BAD. Protip, anytime you're introducing completely new mechanics for a single session, you're probably in for a REALLY bad time unless you've let the players know WAY early on that this is going to happen.
Again, there's a reason videogames that aren't wargames literally ignore this part of conflict. The devs realized very early on that it's just jarring AND unnecessary. Now if the game STARTED with troupe like play with StarCraft like elements, it probably would shine, but that's a very different flavor of RPG fundamentally.
>anytime you're introducing completely new mechanics for a single session, you're probably in for a REALLY bad time
Yep. That's why Fate is good, you're using the same mechanics as you do in the rest of the game. Depending how you divide up the action economy you will end up with the PCs being disproportionately impactful on the battle, but that's fine for the level of pulp Fate games are meant to be. Most players are going to want to be heros and not average soldiers anyway.
Blades in the Dark also integrates scaling up combat into its core mechanics, though that's more for urban gang fights along the lines of Gangs of New York rather than large scale armies. There's no reason you couldn't use the mechanics for it, but I've found the further you move away from the small time criminal premise the worse the rules feel.
> Protip, anytime you're introducing completely new mechanics for a single session, you're probably in for a REALLY bad time unless you've let the players know WAY early on that this is going to happen.
You're in for a bad time regardless because they're going to have to adapt to completely new mechanics, which probably suck because there are no good wargame mechanics that aren't referee'd freeform.
In reality OP, your best bet if you want to run a game that focuses around mass combat, is to run it like the Prussians did, just with your own interpretation of how warfare worked.
If it's not a game about Mass Combat, just don't bother.
What kind of system should I use for a game about mass combat? Using stuff like AoS or Fantasy would probably be too complicated, and at that point it’s not really a TTRPG anymore but a wargame. Want to homebrew my own units and stuff, so basically looking for a wargame RPG if people make those.
Video game RPGs don’t focus on this if they’re smart because it’s bloat, you’re developing 2 games in 1, that never works out well.
I like L5R 4E's. It is not perfect, but it works really well for the setting and it is fast to resolve. It also allows PCs to be part of the mass combat in any role: general, commanding a unit, as a frontliner, in the reserves, etc.
Dragon Age has okay ones.
What's it like?
Maybe ACKS Book of War?
It's B/X based and can seamlessly change from the rpg to the battle/war part.
Can't really think of other examples since Mass Combat is usually glossed over in the trpg sphere.
Definitely ACKS.
>party fights 10 trolls in a dungeon
>party fights 10 trolls made into a unit
>probability-wise the outcome will be 98% the same
It helps that ACKS was made by autistic people who calculated how all those claw/claw/bite damage/hit averages transfer into the larger scale. And it's actually fun to play as well, I recommend everyone who already plays B/X-adjacent games (because let's be real here, nobody will use it with 5e and such) try at least a session of the mass combat fights. My group is not really into long campaigns, but the progression experience of raising that scrub lvl 1 wizard to level 6+ and blasting all the enemy army units to smithereens using the same rules would've probably been sublime.
I plan to make one if I have the brain power one day. But it is for sure an almost impossible task to come up with something that feels realistic.
Real pre-modern battles sometimes took many many hours with very few casualties between both sides, sometimes it turned into a bloodbath right away if a side broke from a charge or whatever.
Fate. You can just stat a "unit" as a character, as let the players control them.
Savage Worlds
I've only just met them, and I'm already in love.
>2d6 Basic
The formula is as follow:
Combat Proficiency of a single creature * Number of Mobs /2 = Horde's Combat Proficiency
So 1 rat is a non-issue, and 10 rats in theory attacking separately can be shrugged off by the most basic damage, but swarm of 10 rats will badly bite you for 5 damage every single turn
>HEX
The formula is as follow:
Single roll for all mooks -> pointing targets of each mook when it's it's their initiative
If Continous Combat is used
Single roll for all mooks -> dispersing their attacks during their round
Everything else can go frick itself.
none
Edge of the Empire/force and destiny/age of rebellion
I hold that as the gold standard for mass combat in ttrpgs
Care to summarize? Is it bound up with the narrative dice like the rest of the system?
> narrative dice like the rest of the system?
Yes.
At it’s core, the mass combat system is a series of opposed leadership tests; however, instead of having your skill check being your presence die pool being upgraded by your leadership skill, the base characteristic is determined based on the size and quality of your military force (a guide is provided to give some ideas of how to arbitrate this) which is then upgraded by your leadership skill.
Each roll-off represents an amount of time within the battle and between mass combat rolls players can directly engage with the battle to try and do shit to either positively modify their mass combat roll, or negatively modify the opponent’s mass combat roll (like removing the big-ass at-at supporting the enemy invasion).
Basically the battle ends when either someone achieves a specific objective, or loses/wins several of leadership tests in a row.
I see, thanks. That sounds a little too streamlined for my tastes but at least it sounds like it resolves quickly and gives some small amount of agency with the in-between stuff.
I thought you were supposed to translate to another game entirely for mass combat? I don’t think any RPG has fun or challenging mass combat rules
ACKs, easily.