11-18-2015, 04:19 AM | #61 | |||||
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
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Re: [Mass Combat] Discipline, Law, Order and Preventing Atrocities
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For all intents and purposes, the army led by the PC is in friendly territory, in that Shussel is an Untheri city and until it was occupied by the Mulhorandi just over a year ago, it belonged to the ad hoc rump regime of Unther, just as everyone in the PCs' force who comes from Messemprar or other Untheri areas. Five hundred of the PCs force are even Untheri soldiers and militiamen from Shussel who were loaned to this operation specifically because they would be able to help with relations with the locals after Shussel was taken. Considering, however, that many armies in the Thirty Years' War were on theoretically friendly territory when they looted, raped and murdered, I didn't feel able to declare that everyone in the army obeyed the orders of the PCs to respect the safety and property of civilians just because those civilians were Untheri. After all, many of them are Untheri who have, willingly or unwillingly, been aiding the Mulhorandi invaders. Quote:
Orders from the top that these features of warfare no longer pertain might stop those who are very disciplined or very afraid of punishment. But such orders won't change the underlying culture, which means that the odds are that disobeying such orders will not be viewed as immoral and those who disobey won't be ostracised or even informed on. Crime statistics usually measure deviation from cultural norms. In this case, I'm trying to determine what percentage of a force will continue to follow cultural norms despite formal orders backed by threat of punishment to the contrary. In most functioning societies, those who commit serious crimes are a tiny minority. On the other hand, those who may sometimes engage in behaviour that is formally unlawful but is nevertheless culturally sanctioned usually form the majority of societies, as social conditioning is generally more powerful than formal legalism. *Usually meaning 'anyone who can't stop us from doing it to them'. Quote:
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The invasion was made during the night. There was effectively a truce from dawn on and a surrender for all forces outside the inner keep** was formalised in mid-morning. At that time, most of the Untheri army hadn't even landed yet. Ships and boats were offloading in the harbour all day long. Every soldier had to be billeted and the military supplies in Shussel had to be catalogued, at least well enough to be able to make use of the most vital ones and prevent soldiers from spoiling anything important. Given that there were reliable reports of a field army on the plains outside and that the dust of the vanguard was visible from the walls from late morning on, there was not much time to enjoy the fruits of conquest. The day has been a hectic one and the soldiers have been in almost constant contact with civilians, mostly civilian workers for the former occupying force of Mulhorand. There have been plenty of opportunities for atrocities, both during enforced relocations of civilians from areas identified as sensitive or vital to the defence of the city, and during the eight hours of rest that most of the soldiers were allowed in their billets. *Which means pretty much everyone except the pirates and the street thugs. **Where the governor and some 500 of his troops managed to hole up and didn't surrender until late afternoon. The PCs' troops didn't do any fighting there, however, there were only some screening troops stationed there while negotiations took place and then the PCs themselves made a commando raid where the gates were blown open. This effectively made further resistance futile and led to the final surrender of Mulhorandi troops in the city, as well as the formal relinquishing of civil authority over Shussel by the Mulhorandi into the hands of 'whatever Untheri government can be found'.
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11-18-2015, 04:23 AM | #62 | |
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
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Re: [Mass Combat] Discipline, Law, Order and Preventing Atrocities
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There essentially won't be any atrocities if two to five PCs get to use their unmodified Leadership rolls to control several thousand men. The reason I think there will be atrocities, despite the expressed desire of the PCs to avoid them and the extremely good skill levels of said PCs, is that most of the Administration and Leadership rolls made to keep discipline among the men are realistically probably going to be made by NCOs and junior officers.
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11-18-2015, 12:30 PM | #63 | |
Join Date: Dec 2012
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Re: [Mass Combat] Discipline, Law, Order and Preventing Atrocities
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That said, if you find using unmodified Leadership, Administration, etc. unrealistic, you have two options if you still want to give the method I suggested a try. The first would be to penalize the leadership and administration rolls by the number of layers of chain of command between your PCs and the common soldier. You would need to figure out the effective rank of your general based on the size of the army and the number of layers of officers beneath him. Then you can penalize the roll by -1 or -2 per level of rank the general is not in direct contact with. So if his effective rank is 5 and you deside to use -2/level, that would be Leadership at -8 (since he directly influences all rank 4 officers, there is no penalty for that first step). This would bring the Leadership and Administration skills down to more reasonable levels and therefore reduce the size of the MoS on the Leadership influence rolls, which means the self control rolls of the different troop types would not go up as much. The other option would be to assign an average Leadership skill for the NCOs of each troop type. Then make a Leadership Influence roll for the average NCO of each troop type, with the PCs using their skills as complimentary skill rolls for the NCOs Leadership. The MoS or MoF of this roll will then be used to raise or lower the self control rolls for each troop type. Just a reminder that the influence rolls are quick contests against Will, so you could also give the different troop types higher effective average Will scores depending onhow resistant you think they are to the idea of showing mercy to a conquered city. This would also lower the MoS for the PC Leadership influence roll, reducing its impact on the self control rolls for each troop type. |
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11-18-2015, 01:55 PM | #64 |
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Heartland, U.S.A.
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Re: [Mass Combat] Discipline, Law, Order and Preventing Atrocities
A 2008 study using the PCL:SV found that 1.2% of a US sample scored 13 or more out of 24, indicating "potential psychopathy".–https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociopath#Epidemiology
This might give you a good lower limit.
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11-19-2015, 01:09 AM | #65 |
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Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Forest Grove, Beaverton, Oregon
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Re: [Mass Combat] Discipline, Law, Order and Preventing Atrocities
Ha. I just looked at the linked check list for Psychopathy. My "sister-in-law" literally fits every single one, bar none.
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11-19-2015, 08:01 AM | #66 |
Join Date: Jun 2013
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Re: [Mass Combat] Discipline, Law, Order and Preventing Atrocities
Forgive me if this has been mentioned (it's a long thread), but the old Stanford Prison Experiment might give some indications. In that, individuals were chosen based on perceived psychological stability, but later studies indicated the way the study was advertised resulted in an overabundance of those with stronger-than-average social dominance, aggression, etc - which is probably a decent match to the sorts you're going to see in a military.
In that, almost all of the guards were at least somewhat cruel to the prisoners, with roughly a third having a sadistic streak to them. While harsh, you could adapt this to your own setup, where almost all of the soldiers will loot, with roughly a third of them going further into torture, rape, and murder. I'd probably go with a hierarchy of thirds - 1/3 looters will attack/torture, 1/3 attackers will rape/murder. This is in the absence of consequences for such actions. MP's, successful Leadership/Administration rolls, harsh consequences, etc will greatly reduce this, although I can't really say by how much. |
11-19-2015, 11:10 AM | #67 |
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Portland, Oregon
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Re: [Mass Combat] Discipline, Law, Order and Preventing Atrocities
I could probably fit the profile of a spree shooter too, come to think of it. I have never been a spree shooter in my entire life nor do I intend to be. Checklists like that only tell probabilities. They are like a sonobuoy that starts beeping toward one direction but is useless without triangulation from other sonobuoys.
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11-19-2015, 02:29 PM | #68 | |
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
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Re: [Mass Combat] Discipline, Law, Order and Preventing Atrocities
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11-19-2015, 03:14 PM | #69 | |
Join Date: Oct 2015
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Re: [Mass Combat] Discipline, Law, Order and Preventing Atrocities
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How many of those street thugs were only one SL from being upstanding citizens? How many of your nobles were a couple SL into the range of "affluenza", as opposed to being mere sociopaths. You know the one about Eccentricity being Insane, but with Money. Of course, in a society with strong economic mobility, it's nice to imagine the serious jerks and psychopaths move down the economic ladder while the good, stable, and wholesome move up...instead of vice versa much of the time. |
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11-19-2015, 06:36 PM | #70 | |
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Portland, Oregon
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Re: [Mass Combat] Discipline, Law, Order and Preventing Atrocities
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forgotten realms, mass combat, social engineering |
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