Individual Non-Commander and Non-Staff Characters in Mass Combat

[Kerdied]

Howdy!

I'm gamemastering a medieval campaign settled in the first crusade and I want to ask how can I GM the mass combat battles from the point of view of rank-and-file soldiers (the characters are simple knights without any power of command), not commanders and his/her staff (intelligence and quarterstaff).

I know that putting encounters until the battle finish is one of the ways, but I wanted more alternatives, specially if it will be both fast and gritty realistc. Can all you guys help me with that?

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Kerdied

I know that putting encounters until the battle finish is one of the ways, but I wanted more alternatives, specially if it will be both fast and gritty realistc. Can all you guys help me with that?

What exactly do you want the PC's role in the battle to be? If they are fighting in the line of battle, it essentially is a series of "encounters" interspersed with long periods of positioning. If they aren't in the line of battle (guarding the train, a reserve force ect.), then they'll get sporadic reports about the battle, and won't do much at all unless they are called into battle or their position is attacked.

What you probably don't want to do is "roll to see if you died". Nobody likes that.

[johndallman]

See "Reconnaissance Adventures" on p30 of Mass Combat. Having the PCs take part in recon gives them much more involvement, and may allow them to meet the commander on their side.

[Kerdied]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

What exactly do you want the PC's role in the battle to be? If they are fighting in the line of battle, it essentially is a series of "encounters" interspersed with long periods of positioning. If they aren't in the line of battle (guarding the train, a reserve force ect.), then they'll get sporadic reports about the battle, and won't do much at all unless they are called into battle or their position is attacked.

What you probably don't want to do is "roll to see if you died". Nobody likes that.

They do both.
Sometimes, they are in the frontlines, facing the enemy in battle, sometimes they are in the rear, protecting the camp, the baggage etc.

For example: yesterday, in the siege of Nicaea, one of the characters took an arrow in the face while protecting Godfrey of Boullion. Luckly, he survived and had to be treated by greek physicans (courtesy of his lord). Later, the turcomans leaded by Kiji Arslam attacked the main crusader force in an attempt to break the siege operation and relif the turkish garrison. The healthy (or something like that) characters gone to the battle while the wounded stayed behind to "protect" the non-combatants and the supplies.

Originally Posted by johndallman

See "Reconnaissance Adventures" on p30 of Mass Combat. Having the PCs take part in recon gives them much more involvement, and may allow them to meet the commander on their side.

Sometimes, they act as scouts for the main force. But this is not their main role. They are dedicated warriors, trained and equipped for frontline combat.

That's why, after scouting, they return to the main force of knights, man at arms and turcopoles and join the battle.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Kerdied

They do both.
Sometimes, they are in the frontlines, facing the enemy in battle, sometimes they are in the rear, protecting the camp, the baggage etc.
...
Sometimes, they act as scouts for the main force. But this is not their main role. They are dedicated warriors, trained and equipped for frontline combat.

Okay, so what exactly are you asking for here? These seem like situations where you simply game out these individual engagements.

[Kerdied]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Okay, so what exactly are you asking for here? These seem like situations where you simply game out these individual engagements.

I wanted to see if there is alternatives to standard combat rules for individual soldiers in mass combat. After all, some battles lasted for hours and, frankly, I don't want to bore my players by gamemastering endless combat rolls.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Kerdied

I wanted to see if there is alternatives to standard combat rules for individual soldiers in mass combat.

Well "roll to see if you died" isn't much fun for anybody. It's also probably a bad idea to make a lot of rolls that only involve NPCs. You could use GURPS Mass Combat and let the PCs take on the roles of commanders, though.

After all, some battles lasted for hours and, frankly, I don't want to bore my players by gamemastering endless combat rolls

No individual soldier in a medieval battle was engaged in personal combat for the entire engagement. So you game out just the pushes that directly engage their element and only for the duration of "kinetic" contact.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

No individual soldier in a medieval battle was engaged in personal combat for the entire engagement. So you game out just the pushes that directly engage their element and only for the duration of "kinetic" contact.

Or any other battle. Those hours contain time spent waiting to engage, maneuvering around to the flanks, regrouping after engagement, retreating, and pursuing.

[khorboth]

I forget where I first saw this technique, but I've used it several times adapted to a few systems and genre:

Step one: Ask how much risk the characters are willing to take on a scale of -3 to +3

Step 2: Roll on an encounter chart using the modifier chosen by the character. Higher-numbered encounters are riskier.

Step 3: Play out brief encounter with the result affecting the overall battle.

How much the PCs actions affect the overall battle depends upon the power level of the PCs and on the realism of the game.

If characters are sticking together, they have to decide as a group. Otherwise, each picks their own risk factor.

This moves quickly if the encounters are brief, and it incorporates both character choice and the chaos of battle.

[whswhs]

What I recommend for this is not worrying about how the battle as a whole is going. You don't need to figure out all the details. Your non-officer PCs probably can't even see most of them while they're tangled up in fighting.

On one hand, you could just decide how the battle will go, based on what situation you want the PCs to have to deal with, or on what you think it's realistic to expect. On the other, you could draw up a reaction table, and roll to see where the outcome falls on it. That will determine the conditions around the PCs. If the battle is going very well for their side, their foes are likely to be discouraged and trying to defend more than attack, they may be outnumbered, and they may even be willing to surrender if asked. If it's going very badly, the PCs will be surrounded by more than their own numbers, and perhaps faced with more potent foes. If you want, the in-between situations can involve less action; for example, maybe an Average outcome shows that the PCs are just sitting their waiting to be moved into battle.

The role of the PCs is also important. Are they ordinary soldiers who aren't expected to do anything special? Are they heroes who will be asked to lead the charge or mount the last defense?

You can have the PCs' actions affect the overall reaction roll: If they do well, give +1 to their side; if they get some critical successes, +3; and the reverse if they do badly. For heroic PCs, double these modifiers.

Another trick I've used is to say, "Okay, let's take the PCs as a sample of their army. How well they do is an indicator of how well their army does. If they flee, or die standing, or rout their foes, the rest of their side does similarly badly or well." That way, at the end, when they see all their foes checked, or slain, they can look around and see the rest of their side in the same situation.

The Mass Combat rules are for players whose characters ARE concerned with the whole battle. They're not ideally suited for grunts.