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gradenko_2000 posted:On the subject of mass combat, people want mass combat rules because they feel obliged to keep "playing the game", but it's also not as simple as saying "just do it in Frostgrave / Warhammer / Risk" because learning an entirely new system for a single chapter of your campaign, plus all the associated conversion work, is a lot to ask. Nah the high point for the old EU is Tales of The Jedi
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Jan 7, 2019 08:48
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The lesson to be learned from Stackpole's and Allston's Star Wars stuff is that Star Wars without Jedi is more fun as a story.
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Jan 7, 2019 09:12
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Mike Stackpole did a lot of eighties RPG work, from Tunnels & Trolls to Battletech, but moved on to work in video games and fiction that's actually profitable, and hasn't been directly involved in the industry for a long time. But that kind of typifies the old boys' club that GAMA is, AFAIK. (You can't look at the actual directory unless you're a member.) Perhaps he's best known in the hobby for the Pulling Report, a rebuttal to certain anti-D&D accusations leveled at the hobby by Bothered By Dungeons & Dragons (aka BADD).
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Jan 7, 2019 09:13
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Allston did the Rules Cyclopedia edition of D&D which, as far as I know, is considered pretty good.
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Jan 7, 2019 09:15
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Aaron Allston was a much better writer than Stackpole is, in the realm of geek fiction authors. I'm actually a little surprised that nobody ever made a Doc Sidhe RPG.
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Jan 7, 2019 09:37
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gradenko_2000 posted:The Black Fleet Crisis was by Michael P. Kube-McDowell Woops! My flippant addition to my post is even less in-context than I originally thought. (Black Fleet was terrible, and I knew this even though I was like 12 when I read it.) Alien Rope Burn posted:Perhaps he's best known in the hobby for the Pulling Report, a rebuttal to certain anti-D&D accusations leveled at the hobby by Bothered By Dungeons & Dragons (aka BADD). It's probably why I confused him for the author of Black Fleet. The Pulling Report was one of the first big "internet takedown" things I read (even though I don't think it originally was on the internet), and I was fascinated by it. I've associated it with Black Fleet for at least 25 years and that's crazy.
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Jan 7, 2019 10:32
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Jimbozig posted:What do you want it to be like? I've spent a lot of time tinkering with this (warmaster is a great wargame, clearly I can hack this in to exalted right?) but there are a bunch of problems with existing wargames that make them not well suited for this either - the biggest one is the GM's role. Wargames are generally balanced and designed on the assumption a player's trying to win, rather than provide a curated experience for the other players. They also don't generally scale properly for one GM and multiple players. The worst thing though is that designing scenarios that will be interesting when played out as a wargame rather than a timefilling exercise is a huge amount of work for a GM if you can even pull it off. Every time I've tried setting up a scenario it ends up being anticlimatic as gently caress in actual play, and it's much harder to apply the kind of gentle nudges and fudges you can do to a melee when using wargaming rules. Wouldn't mind trying out the good old BECMI War Machine rules since they were much more suitable for a GM to run.
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Jan 7, 2019 11:32
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In Scotland, our edition wars end out with the cops showing up and someone brandishing a hammer.
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Jan 7, 2019 12:22
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Sion posted:In Scotland, our edition wars end out with the cops showing up and someone brandishing a hammer. quote:Police were contacted, at which point he picked up a hammer and threatened to “smash” any officers attending, saying “let them come”. This kid owns.
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Jan 7, 2019 12:26
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Wha daur meddle wi' 5E?
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Jan 7, 2019 13:03
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On the subject of mass battle, the D&D 2e setting Birthright had a mass battle system as part of its central conceit (that of the PCs running an actual nation). This was done using "War Cards," with each card representing a company and each commander having a certain number of them. Each card had a set of stats on them, and each card a type (archers, pikemen, scouts, etc.) Combat was determined using a set of "Battle Cards" where you cross-referenced a unit's defense with a unit's attack rating and altered it based on the battle card you drew. A war was broken up in movement phases, attack phases, and morale phases, which were repeated until one side declared defeat. All of this was played on a single battle map included in the box set, and there were enough War Cards to cover just about every unit type you could reasonably use in a campaign. Like most of 2e it was kind of clunky, mostly in how you had to compare values and look up a chart on the Battle Card to resolve combat. I don't think the basic idea is without merit though, as it's suitably abstract enough that with a bit of work you could streamline it so that it runs much more smoothly. Having units represented as cards and everything they need be on that card goes a long way to making mass combat easier to manage, if that's the sort of thing you're trying to do.
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Jan 7, 2019 16:20
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Besides the obvious joke of using Chainmail as God and Gygax intended, didn't AD&D have their own miniatures wargaming spin-offs?
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Jan 7, 2019 16:36
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The best mass battle system I think I've seen was from Remnants, where each army got a single stat based on its quality. Then each character gets a short scene where they try to do things to sway the overall battle (like challenge an enemy commander or give a rousing speech), and if they succeed their army gets more bonus points. Then once they're all done, whichever side has the larger stat wins.
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Jan 7, 2019 16:39
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It's a fair point about mass combat being difficult to do, but we're doing one of the sample 5e modules and it seems to be trying to be a sandbox, except everywhere we explore turns out to be the entrenched headquarters of some evil cult with in-place resources so they can't be besieged and it does feel very wargamey. After trying and failing to attack several of them (including one where the enemies had swords which deal extra damage to unarmored opponents which seem to just be there to screw monks even more than they are already screwed) we ended up in the strange position of wondering in-character how to grind for XP.. Is it just me or has railroading in standard adventures just gone passive-aggressive? The same GM got me Waterdeep Heist for Christmas and it has a ton of times where it says "the PCs can do X, Y, or Z" and then 20 pages later there's a critical event which happens "using the thing the PCs got from doing X". I don't know if "we ran out of XP sources because we did things in the wrong order" counts as a railroading error but still.
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Jan 7, 2019 16:47
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There was a little mass combat system for Dugeon World in The Last Days of Anglekite, did anyone ever try that out?
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Jan 7, 2019 16:50
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gradenko_2000 posted:Besides the obvious joke of using Chainmail as God and Gygax intended, didn't AD&D have their own miniatures wargaming spin-offs?  Also, 3E had the badly misfired relaunched Chainmail game
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Jan 7, 2019 16:57
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Evil Mastermind posted:The best mass battle system I think I've seen was from Remnants, where each army got a single stat based on its quality. Then each character gets a short scene where they try to do things to sway the overall battle (like challenge an enemy commander or give a rousing speech), and if they succeed their army gets more bonus points. Then once they're all done, whichever side has the larger stat wins. Huh. I'd totally forgotten Remnants had that system, which is odd as I love it. One more reason added to the pile.
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Jan 7, 2019 17:16
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gradenko_2000 posted:Besides the obvious joke of using Chainmail as God and Gygax intended, didn't AD&D have their own miniatures wargaming spin-offs?
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Jan 7, 2019 17:36
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Spellbound Kingdoms has a very interesting mass combat chapter, and I've always been pretty curious about how it plays out at the table. From reading it, it seems like it might hit a good balance between integration with the rest of the system and being a good system in its own right.
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Jan 7, 2019 17:38
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How quick is Chainmail to learn and play? I'd be tempted. That is, looking at it from the perspective of a campaign arc built around the PCs marshaling troops and going into battle, and wanting to play that out.
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Jan 7, 2019 17:43
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L5R has a mass battle system but gently caress me if I can remember any of it. I know there's a skill just for mass battle and there's a decent chunk of the 4e core book devoted to it, but that's all.
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Jan 7, 2019 17:46
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Yawgmoth posted:L5R has a mass battle system but gently caress me if I can remember any of it. I know there's a skill just for mass battle and there's a decent chunk of the 4e core book devoted to it, but that's all. It's super deadly garbage and always has been. It's also slow as gently caress.
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Jan 7, 2019 18:00
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I do like that L5R has a Battle skill that is important when your PC is fighting in a mass battle, but I've literally never had to roll it in any game I've been in.
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Jan 7, 2019 18:01
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Mass battle is such a weird design off-ramp, just use the battle as a backdrop and stay focused on the players. It's an opportunity for rad set piece encounters with the enemy army's villains or war engines! Why waste time calculating the combat results for dozens of units? If the players are winning, their side is winning. The end.
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Jan 7, 2019 18:02
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moths posted:Mass battle is such a weird design off-ramp, just use the battle as a backdrop and stay focused on the players. Yeah that's how it works in Exalted 3. Troops are just basically extra hp for your heroes.
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Jan 7, 2019 18:32
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It's somewhat tempting to recommend the rules for leading troops in battle from Chivalry & Sorcery 1e, which probably aren't the greatest, but do have rules for things like troops running into battle against your orders because they want loot, or the nobles under your command not following your orders because they're obstinate, intransigent, or glory-hounds.
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Jan 7, 2019 18:48
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That doesn't sound fun at all.
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Jan 7, 2019 18:59
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Coolness Averted posted:That doesn't sound fun at all. It does for me. Rules to gently caress over armies by using mongol tactics like fake retreating and leaving the treasure wagons behind then return and kill erryone while they are trying to steal the loot is cool
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Jan 7, 2019 19:14
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I'm a grog wargamer now so I need this poo poo in my veins
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Jan 7, 2019 19:16
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There were also the skirmish rules for D&D minis using their prepainted miniatures during 3.5 and 4th ed. I had fun with both versions of the ruleset at the time but have no idea how they held up.
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Jan 7, 2019 19:22
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Evil Hat has just released Shadow of the Century for backers of the original Fate Core kickstarter, which means that after five years (almost exactly), the Fate Core KS is finally fully completed after delivering eight stand-alone games, two collections of mini-settings, one YA novel, and numerous add-ons and extras.
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Jan 7, 2019 19:57
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Evil Mastermind posted:Evil Hat has just released Shadow of the Century for backers of the original Fate Core kickstarter, which means that after five years (almost exactly), the Fate Core KS is finally fully completed after delivering eight stand-alone games, two collections of mini-settings, one YA novel, and numerous add-ons and extras. Meh, still a much, much better record than Exalted KS.
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Jan 7, 2019 20:17
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Covok posted:Meh, still a much, much better record than Exalted KS. Oh, I'm not saying they did something wrong or anything. I'm just impressed they released everything they said they would while maintaining communications the whole time.
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Jan 7, 2019 20:32
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Any good places to pick up RPG tiles/maps outside of Paizo? I have the DnD tiles already, but I don't want to give Paizo any more of my money.
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Jan 7, 2019 21:10
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gradenko_2000 posted:Besides the obvious joke of using Chainmail as God and Gygax intended, didn't AD&D have their own miniatures wargaming spin-offs? Yes. Not only that but if I remember correctly, Dark Sun was invented to cross-promote it. efb
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Jan 7, 2019 21:12
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That Old Tree posted:It's probably why I confused him for the author of Black Fleet. The Pulling Report was one of the first big "internet takedown" things I read (even though I don't think it originally was on the internet), and I was fascinated by it. I've associated it with Black Fleet for at least 25 years and that's crazy. Dragon Magazine #171 had a guest editorial by Stackpole that summarized a lot of the basic logical flaws in the assertions of BADD and related psychologists putting forth the hypothesis that D&D triggered "fantasy-prone personalities". NinjaDebugger posted:It's super deadly garbage and always has been. It's also slow as gently caress. Pretty much. Every round determines how much damage you take, which can be fairly high, and that's ignoring actual duels or fights (using the normal, fairly deadly L5R combat system) that might be triggered by the battle table; generally PCs aren't going to survive more than 2-6 rounds of it if they're being cautious. There's one published first-edition adventure (Twilight Honor) that has a mass combat that's at least 12 rounds long after the PCs just survived a deadly encounter, which would take a figurative miracle to survive.
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Jan 7, 2019 21:12
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anyways I'm looking forward to Reign 2E because if anyone can solve this problem satisfactorily without just resorting to "it's a barely-there narrative subsystem" it's Greg Stolze
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Jan 7, 2019 21:14
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S.J. posted:Any good places to pick up RPG tiles/maps outside of Paizo? I have the DnD tiles already, but I don't want to give Paizo any more of my money. http://rpgmapshare.com/piwigo/gallery/index.php?/categories
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Jan 7, 2019 21:16
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Plutonis posted:It does for me. Rules to gently caress over armies by using mongol tactics like fake retreating and leaving the treasure wagons behind then return and kill erryone while they are trying to steal the loot is cool no silly, those are rules for your troops loving you over, Lord Gorgo's undead army is immune to morale and loyalty checks. Also the treasure you looted was cursed.
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Jan 7, 2019 21:26
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Alien Rope Burn posted:Pretty much. Every round determines how much damage you take, which can be fairly high, and that's ignoring actual duels or fights (using the normal, fairly deadly L5R combat system) that might be triggered by the battle table; generally PCs aren't going to survive more than 2-6 rounds of it if they're being cautious.
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Jan 7, 2019 21:38
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