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View Full Version : Systems with good ride mechanics, and/or time distortion.



ace rooster
2016-02-22, 04:25 PM
I'm currently working on homebrewing a system, and have a few ideas that I would like to implement. I have never come across a system that handles them well, but that is probably my inexperience, so I thought I would ask here.

Firstly, I would like it to handle mass combat well. The basic model is that you ride them, which suggests that the best places to look for guidance is systems that handle ride well. Good vehicle mechanics would also be appreciated.

The second thing I would like it to be able to handle is properly epic battles, which mean that they last longer than a minute. The battle between Gandalf and the balrog took eight days, which is 115,200 6 second rounds. I don't think any players are going to actually want to play that, so I would like to the system to be able to handle time appropriately. Even if individuals never fight that long, armies will, particularly in siege situations. Is anyone aware of any systems that handle these situations well?

ace rooster
2016-02-22, 07:19 PM
Next questions is whether anyone would actually be interested in such a system, or would I just be wasting my time?

Fable Wright
2016-02-23, 04:14 AM
I've not looked over the mechanics, but Only War, a WH40K TTRPG, might have the kind of rules you're looking for in mass combat, as it essentially functions as the halfway point between Dark Heresy/Rogue Trader and the 40k wargame.

That said, there are a number of systems that could work for it. Reign, with the One-Engine System, might be what you're looking for overall. It's a simple concept at the core, but it models fights between forces vastly different in power at pretty much all levels using the same, abstracted mechanics. You don't really care about the individual soldiers, but the course of battle. It can do round-by-round combat, it can do day-to-day army fighting, and a series of clever checks on the part of the DM between roughly equal forces could approximate the Balrog fight fairly well. Not sure how climactic it would be given that a full day of fighting is abstracted to two dice pools rolling against each other, but it's certainly a start.

Mr. Mask
2016-02-23, 04:38 AM
Ride as in horses, or cars/tanks/etc.? There are a few games that go indepth with vehicle combat, though their names slip my mind sadly. Can't think of any that go really indepth with horse riding, which may be more interesting to me.

Mass combat is an interesting question. I've been trying to think of how you might handle that. Also time distortions and sieges.

Ashtagon
2016-02-23, 04:45 AM
wrt mass combat, how do you want it to resolve?

If you want battles to be decided by a single die roll, with players taking up the role of grand generals commanding the entire eastern front, then something like the War machine rules from BECMI (or more recently, Dark Dungeons) would work.

If you want players to be generals moving individual regiments and squadrons over a battlefield, I understand that TSR did some wargame rules (Battle System, in the AD&D era), as has Games Workshop. Green Ronin's Mythic Vistas series (especially Testament, Trojan war, and Eternal Rome) also had regiment-level control of troops.

If you want PCs to be soldiers conducting commando raids, acting as footsoldiers in the battle line, or heroes fighting enemy soldiers in the field of battle, then WotC's Heroes of battle is for you.

And of course, GURPS Mass Combat exists, although I haven't checked what scale that one is.

So really, my return question is, what scale of mass combat are you looking for? By that, I mean what level of decision making, not how many soldiers on a side.

ace rooster
2016-02-23, 07:43 AM
The aim is to have the system follow the pace of the narrative. For example, if you were writing an story about the campaign, and would use the line

"After defeating the PuppyZilla, they battled for 3 days to the peak of Mount Fluffy, before ...",

then that battle should not take long to play. This section should be a few unremarkable dice rolls, with the battles before and after being much more fleshed out.


wrt mass combat, how do you want it to resolve?

If you want battles to be decided by a single die roll, with players taking up the role of grand generals commanding the entire eastern front, then something like the War machine rules from BECMI (or more recently, Dark Dungeons) would work.



If you want players to be generals moving individual regiments and squadrons over a battlefield, I understand that TSR did some wargame rules (Battle System, in the AD&D era), as has Games Workshop. Green Ronin's Mythic Vistas series (especially Testament, Trojan war, and Eternal Rome) also had regiment-level control of troops.

If you want PCs to be soldiers conducting commando raids, acting as footsoldiers in the battle line, or heroes fighting enemy soldiers in the field of battle, then WotC's Heroes of battle is for you.

Yes, as in all and any of the above, based on narrative importance. In all systems I have played, the narrative is constrained by limits of the system on the players. Any system could in theory be used for epic battles over days, but in practice this doesn't work. Players generally cannot be bothered chunking through 1000 orcs in 3.5 for example, despite the fact that this is well within the capabilities of a warrior. Once they have chunked their way through 1000 orcs to get to the boss orc, then we will start seeing things move faster.


And of course, GURPS Mass Combat exists, although I haven't checked what scale that one is.

So really, my return question is, what scale of mass combat are you looking for? By that, I mean what level of decision making, not how many soldiers on a side.

The aim is to make scale entirely unimportant, as far as the system is concerned, because the units under the command of a character become an extension of them. Ride mechanics (in terms of horses or vehicles) are important because a man on a horse is an example of a 'gestalt' entity that will be generally be handled, and so are a good place to start generalising from.

A hero and his unit are then treated as a single entity, and the system is going to be built to make this construction easy. In a battle between two large units, it would be possible for the commander and his personal guard (or any commando unit) to attempt to get to the enemy commander, and this would be modelled as a standard attack. The result of this attack would be that the scope would in some sense zoom in, and the battle then refocuses around the commander and guard battle.

Fable Wright
2016-02-23, 08:01 AM
The aim is to have the system follow the pace of the narrative. For example, if you were writing an story about the campaign, and would use the line

"After defeating the PuppyZilla, they battled for 3 days to the peak of Mount Fluffy, before ...",

then that battle should not take long to play. This section should be a few unremarkable dice rolls, with the battles before and after being much more fleshed out.

-SNIP-

A hero and his unit are then treated as a single entity, and the system is going to be built to make this construction easy. In a battle between two large units, it would be possible for the commander and his personal guard (or any commando unit) to attempt to get to the enemy commander, and this would be modelled as a standard attack. The result of this attack would be that the scope would in some sense zoom in, and the battle then refocuses around the commander and guard battle.

...Seriously. Look at the Reign book. It seems dangerously close to what you want out of your system.

Eisenheim
2016-02-23, 08:53 AM
Also gonna toss fate out there. Have you looked at fate? it has highly variable granularity and narrative driven mechanics. You could probably build what you want as a fate hack.

Ashtagon
2016-02-23, 09:33 AM
I'm going to name those three scales of battle RP as theatre, strategic, and tactical.


Theatre: The PCs are typically in a camp or viewpoint on a hill overlooking the battlefield, if they are anywhere near it at all. The campaign will likely involve many battles spanning a nation or half a continent. This scale is most suitable if individual PCs are not personally involved in any given battle.
Strategic: The PCs are responsible for planning troop movements within the battlefield, deciding when and where each flank should move, whether a unit should be deployed as skirmishers, whether to sent half the army around to try and encircle the enemy, etc. PCs will typically either command or be attached to individual units. depending on other factors, a unit could be anything from a squadron to a regiment.
Tactical: PCs are typically involved in pre-battle special ops (e.g., capture battle plans, assassinate key leaders, disable artillery) or act as commandos in the battle. While it is conceivable that PCs could be rank-and-file soldiers in a larger unit, in practice, this is not typically a fun role, due to the way command structures in an army would limit player freedom of choice. The actual battle results at this level are typically either ad-libbed by the GM or based on how the PCs do in their specific mission, regardless of the overall abilities of the wider forces around them.


Now, from what you describe, it sounds very much like you want a strategic level of gaming, in which case I would repeat my suggestion to investigate Green Ronin's Testament. It includes everything you asked for.

However, for "off-screen" battles where the PCs are not present, I would still suggest using Dark Dungeons war machine rules.

JoeJ
2016-02-23, 10:15 AM
In Squadron UK, time in combat is measured in "panels" like in a comic, instead of specific units of time. Perhaps something like that would work for what you're looking for.