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Old 11-15-2015, 09:11 AM   #29
Icelander
 
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Default Re: [Mass Combat] Discipline, Law, Order and Preventing Atrocities

Quote:
Originally Posted by dukofdeth View Post
I was recently surprised to learn that it took mathematicians some thirty years to fully flesh out the proof that 1+1=2. I would imagine that coming up with some sort of mathematical model to generate a statistical model of typical post-battle atrocities in a historical setting would take just as long.
I don't need a robust statistical model that can predict individual behaviour. I need a rough benchmark of frequency, to be able to adjust based on situation and skill rolls, for macro-scale numbers.

Quote:
Originally Posted by dukofdeth View Post
It happens for so many stupid reasons, and psychologically it just seemed to come down to greed, wrath, and power, much as it still does.
I would be more inclined to consider fear, confusion and alienation as primary causes. Very few people truly enjoy war. Most men are cut off from their ordinary lives, family and all the things that, to them, represent the physical embodiment of a value system and right and wrong. Most of their cultural norms enable them to act within a small society linked by kin bonds and strongly tied to a certain locality. In an alien situation, they lack a frame of reference for appropriate standards of behaviour toward those who lack any link to them and whom it is easy to lump into an undifferentiated mass of frigthening and hateful 'enemies'.

Abstract moral reasoning has little true impact on most people, certainly not when faced with strong emotion. And in war, most people are afraid and confused all the time. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate. And so on.

Quote:
Originally Posted by dukofdeth View Post
The difference then was that it was expected to happen. It was almost a perk of a conquering force - to do with the conquered as they wished. Some conquerors let their men run rampant, some reigned them in, and some made mountains out of the skulls of their victims.
For most of human history, the right to advance economically and satiate their base desires at the expense of the conquered was pretty much the sole perk of common soldiers.

Any commander who wants to have willing soldiers, but doesn't want to accord them this right is going to have to control a very advanced system of infrastructure, law and organisation that can make a career where people try to kill you competative with one where they were rarely do, without providing that extraordinary chance of social mobility which most other careers did not.

Quote:
Originally Posted by dukofdeth View Post
Take your commander's wishes and translate that into what will, for the most part, happen. I wouldn't dwell on the numbers - there will always be those who refuse to toe the line. You can make it a quest of sorts for the PC's to investigate an incident, or a series of them, and to bring those they believe to be involved before justice. Your characters will not catch them all, so I wouldn't fret over such fine details. Either such incidents are critical to the overall story you are weaving, or they are just so much noise in the background.
Being able to translate wishes into reality in RPGs usually requires supernatural powers and/or skill checks modified for the difficulty of the task.

In this case, it is implausible that any success on a non-magical skill check could enable one person to control the behaviour of thousands in a chaotic situation. Good planning and organisation can minimise and mitigate harm, but not eliminate it.

But I need to know whether the PC is dealing with a few isolated incidents, a couple of dozen, hundreds or thousands. I don't really have a good feeling for the percentage of people in a typical TL2-4 military force who will rape and murder civilians. As I noted earlier, I can find stats for modern militaries, but in all cases, the situation is so fundamentally different that these stats are useless.

Intuitively, I suspect anything from 5% to 80% may be possible as a baseline, assuming no influence one way or another from the high command. But I don't have enough data to come up with a narrower range.

Quote:
Originally Posted by dukofdeth View Post
Those who suffered such deprivations were not likely to come forward, as in those days no one spoke of such things. Before people like Oprah stepped up and came out about the sort of things they had suffered through, most victims of such violence did not really speak of it. They held it in, and tried to cope. Some managed, some did not. Some imploded, and some exploded.
While many civilians may not bring their grievances to the officers of the new occupying army, rumours of any atrocities committed will spread and will have an impact on the relations between the PCs' Free Unther army and the people intended to be the new citizens of Shussel under Free Unther.

It's vital for the plans of the PCs that the majority of the civilian populace does not hate and fear their men and that community leaders feel that it is safe and useful to bring complaints to their officers.

Quote:
Originally Posted by dukofdeth View Post
Figure out what you need - story-wise - of such events, and either work it in, or just have it as a casual mention. Such-and-such occurred - make up a number - and so-and-so have been put in chains, and await judgement. If it isn't driving your story, I'd keep it at arms length. Have your commander do what he must, mourn if he must, but move on.
What I need?

It's not about my needs or my story. The players have goals for their characters. I model the world.

My job is to make the number of accused violators of the general orders plausible. I also have to be able to answer what faction each of them comes from, because there will major political consequences if the PC executes volunteers from allied factions that he technically has no lawful authority to punish, beyond refusing their services.
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