War Campaign Advice

[Outrider]

I'm interested in running a full scale war campaign in which the PCs will take on the role of commanders/important members of the military force invading another kingdom.

I have some ideas for missions I can send them on, but they all are the type of mission that will take them off the front lines. That's good for the down time between the major battles, however, what I really want is to play up the feeling of being right in the thick of the war, on the front lines with combat raging all around them and arrows filling the sky. But I want to do it in a way that wont result in endless rounds of the PCs just fighting foot soldiers and enemy commanders. I want them to do other things that keep them on the front line, lives on the line, but is more than just fighting constantly.

Has anyone run this kind of adventure before? What did you do?

[ImproperJustice]

Some resources that may help:

Savage Worlds has a Mass Battle system that can easily be abstracted to 5th edition.
The cliff note version is that both armies begin with a number of tokens that roughly represent their numbers in proportion to one another.
If both sides have a 1000 troops then they each start with 10 tokens representing 100 troops each.

At the start of each “round” which represents an hour of fighting, the two opposing commanders make opposed rolls modified by various factors like magic suport, morale, defensive positions, and whether they outnumber the opponents forces.

This will determine which side suffers losses that round.

PCs then get to declare individual actions such as:
Charging the front lines, making a sneak attack on supplies, setting up a field hospital etc....

Then they make rolls against a DC the GM sets and based upon their sucess or failure, they could add or remove tokens from either side, but might also lose hit points or spell slots depending on how things.

Then it is up to the GM to weave this all into an exciting narrative.

After losses are assessed, the GM checks for morale.


If that feels like too much work, Green Ronin press put out a mas battle system for True 20 / Mutants and Mastwrmind’s Sword and Sorcery supplement.
It’s D20 based and more detailed than above, and you may be able to covert the rules more easily.

[MrStabby]

I have run this kind of adventure before. My advice would be to invest in a second system. Use D&D for small party adventures and use a wargame for more front-line stuff and a logistics system for managing sabotage etc.. Better to use the right too for the job than trying to bend something to a purpose for which it was not intended.

[Outrider]

I don't think I was clear in what I'm looking for. :smallconfused:

I'm looking for things other than combat for the group to do on the front line during a major battle. The actual battle I can spin narrativly, but I want the PCs to be able to contribute with something other than charging into to fray, while still being in the thick of the battle.

[Kane0]

Additional context may be required.

What kind of war is this? Who is involved? What is the scale? Is this more like a pre-napoleonic war or a World War?

[Outrider]

Additional context may be required.

What kind of war is this? Who is involved? What is the scale? Is this more like a pre-napoleonic war or a World War?

It's a pretty standard fantasy war. United Goblin Tribes vs Small Human Kingdom. The twist is the PCs will be goblins.

The two forces are roughly equal. The goblins have greater numbers, but the humans have better equipment. Humans have horse cavalry, goblins have raptor-like drakes (flightless).

[Caesar]

All the special forces operations immediately spring to mind, as well as more diplomatic goals. So the PCs could attempt to penetrate enemy lines to spy, sabatoge infrastructure, or kidnap/assassinate an important officer, etc. Or they could attempt to parlay with a third party to gain alliance and swing the war, or sue for peace with the opposing king, etc etc...

There are also lots of entirely non-altruistic or parallel goals, like using/abusing the back-drop of the war to steal an valuable relic or gain access to a forbidden library in pursuit of knowledge needed to stop the End Of The World..

[Magzimum]

Players could for example:


Relay messages from the commander to the lower officers. This is especially necessary if the battleground is so large that the commander cannot oversee the whole field.
Rescue particularly valuable allies (maybe their value only becomes apparent during the battle? "Saving private Gniagzisz")
Capture enemies for interrogation or ransom (catching them alive is hard when all your allies are going for the kill!)
Sabotage missions in the enemy supply camp / supply train
Protect valuable allies (i.e. the war mage who has one important spell to cast near the frontline, but is too fragile to even walk into the battle himself and must be carried)
Your side has dug a tunnel under the battlefield, and has hidden a large explosive in the tunnel. The tunnel's entrance is in the middle of the battlefield. The commanders do not know why the explosive has not gone off yet. The party is sent to investigate, if possible detonate, and report back to the commander as soon as possible.
One of the front-line officers has lost his mind (or was bribed?) and is switching sides! The party must locate and assassinate the traitor and take command of that platoon before it reaches the enemy camp. Once successful, a more experienced leader will take over the platoon and engage them in battle again.


Just some ideas!

[BreaktheStatue]

I'm interested in running a full scale war campaign in which the PCs will take on the role of commanders/important members of the military force invading another kingdom.

I have some ideas for missions I can send them on, but they all are the type of mission that will take them off the front lines. That's good for the down time between the major battles, however, what I really want is to play up the feeling of being right in the thick of the war, on the front lines with combat raging all around them and arrows filling the sky. But I want to do it in a way that wont result in endless rounds of the PCs just fighting foot soldiers and enemy commanders. I want them to do other things that keep them on the front line, lives on the line, but is more than just fighting constantly.

Has anyone run this kind of adventure before? What did you do?

Yeah, I was stationed in Sadr City, in Baghdad. I can't speak definitely about the entire spectrum of war, but in my experience, war is generally a big slug of boredom (95%+), interrupted by brief periods of incredible violence.

If you are going for realism, when your guys aren't actively fighting, they're probably doing really, really tedious and unsexy stuff like shoring-up defenses, cleaning weapons, burning poop and garbage, and smoking cigarettes. Maybe they're training soldiers if they have the space and motivation, but probably not.

Our lives were "on the line" in the sense that we could always take the random incoming or sniper fire, but yeah, that was random.

TL/DR: War is mostly boring. The only way to avoid that is to fight. Sorry.

[ImproperJustice]

Yeah. I’m wondering if you have a better concept of what someone would be doing who is in the thick of combat but not fighting.

[Vogie]

Use the skill challenge mechanic from 4e, giving your players an "encounter" that only consists of using skill checks to augment roleplay.

This could include:

Reacting to the battle around them
Running the wounded back to the medics
Putting out fires
Running supplies out to the front line
Reinforce the front line
Repair the gate.
Sap the enemies walls/siege engines
Offer new tactics the army hadn't thought of


When I run large battles, I use the skill challenge to give the players the ability to be cinematic, and will often mix combat encounters in between them. Skill challenge to get the McGuffin to the checkpoint, combat encounter to defeat the enemies already there, then a skill challenge to either defend the McGuffin (if the combat encounter was successful) or to run away (if it was not successful). The McGuffin in that Scenario could be a bomb to blow a hole in the walls, a fragile wizard doing a specialized ritual, getting the decorated general to a place where they can better command the western front, et cetera.

[Louro]

A lil different approach would be to have the players on first line on the first scene the first day.
Chaaarge!!!
Player die. Then rolls a new goblin, who is also on the frey of course. They getting killed as the whole army retreats.
Have them do stuff like using ballistas to shoot griffons down, a small unit hidden ready to charge into any Spellcaster they see, set fire traps...

A small detachment is left behind to cover army retreat. Players keep dying and rolling new chars. Have them rescued when they are almost the last ones. They are heroes now, and blood brothers. They are designated to special ops. Whatever that could mean for a goblin army.

They will learn that the front is not a good place.

[lt_murgen]

Honstly, just go and binge watch war movies. Plenty of ideas there:

Guns of Navarone
Force 10 from Navarone
The Dirty Dozen
Apocalypse Now
Where Eagles Dare
Kelly's Heroes

[Spiritchaser]

Read black company!

There are many ideas there for a small group of soldiers in the thick of a war greater than themselves. Mostly greater anyway...

[ImproperJustice]

Read black company!

There are many ideas there for a small group of soldiers in the thick of a war greater than themselves. Mostly greater anyway...

I second this. Really fun series...

[Requilac]

As odd as it sounds, war campaigns are also some of the best environment for social interaction. After all, It is very rare to see a war between two factions where neither has any allies. The player’s underdog goblin tribe isn’t going to be able to overrun an entire well equipped human kingdom without any help. You should capitalize on this aspect of the political side of war.

Have the players try to forge alliances with other beaten down civilizations like orcs, kobolds, kenku, lizard folk, and yuan-ti and unite against a common enemy; the humans that have killed them for thousands of years out of racism and because they believe these creatures are “evil”. Maybe the PCs must convince a neutral party who doesn’t want to get involved in the war to trade with the goblins/allow them to cross through their territory even though it could result in the human enemies attacking them. Maybe the adventurerers have to assassinate an enemy leader who is about to decide to ally with the humans.

War is just as much about politics as it is combat (in most cases), so if one wants to wage war then they had best get involved in the politics.

[BreaktheStatue]

If you really want to hammer home that they're on the front and that it's a dangerous place without actual initiative-order combat , you could always come up with some simple mechanic to represent incoming artillery fire.

Exactly how you implement it, idk, but I'd just randomly ask for rolls:

"Hey, what's your group doing?"
"Oh, we're walking from the command tent to this forward position."
<Roll a d20> Nat 1 (or whatever you want)
"Roll for dex saves, ya'll just got fireballed by incoming goblin artillery."

You can do this whenever. Artillery can hit at any time. You can add all sorts of crazy consequences, too. Suddenly dead NPCs, destroyed loot/equipment, whatever.

I don't know "enjoyable" this would be, in practice, but the front will seem a lot more wildly lethal and unpredictable.

[BreaktheStatue]

Make the environment the enemy, too. You could really get wild with it.

"Okay, so we're going to take this long rest now."
"Make a CON save."
On Fail: "The smell of excrement, thousands of unwashed bodies, and rotten flesh is too much for you. You do not gain the benefits of a long rest."

[Outrider]

Thanks for all of the suggestions. I've got a few ideas of how to get the effect I'm looking for now.

[Angelalex242]

One thing about war...it tends to be LOTS AND LOTS of hits from low damage non magical attacks.


All your heavy armor guys want heavy armor master in this campaign. It's a lifesaver, since you can't dodge everything.

If Adamant armor's available to negate crits, get that too.

[Kyrell1978]

Check out Matthew Colville on youtube. He actually made a 5e compatible book that deals with strongholds and large scale battles.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=na7rHQlk57c