Tactical RPG?

[Enix18]

So, I was thinking today about video games that involve a tactical, turn-based battle system (i.e. Final Fantasy Tactics, Gladius, Luminous Arc, Operation: Darkness, etcetera) and an interesting question popped into my head. Naturally, I decided to consult the collective wisdom of the playground:

Are there any tabletop roleplaying games that simulate this style of tactical rpg? Are there any tabletop roleplaying games that could easily be used to simulate such a system? (By "tabletop roleplaying game" I mean "pen & paper rpg", so please don't suggest anything like Mage Knight: Dungeons.)

Particularly, I'm interested in doing something similar to Final Fantasy Tactics where individual units could have class trees and such, but I could easily settle for less. What I really want is a system that focuses on tactical combat and is flexible enough to offer a variety of classes/creatures without being totally open-ended. Preferably, it should also be a medieval fantasy game.

My first thought was to try D&D 4E (probably with some modifications, but those are unimportant right now). While this might not be a terrible idea, I am a little put-off by the fact that there are no rules for creating new monsters, and the rules for advancing existing monsters are pretty bland.

So I will reiterate my question: Are there any tabletop rpgs focused on tactical combat, or any that could easily be used for such a system?

[Kurald Galain]

Hm, that's tricky. Most RPGs start from a different angle. You would probably find it easier to find a squad-level tactical game and apply RPG rules to it.

I would recommend against 4E if you're looking for a tactical game, simply because it's written for easy accessibility, rather than complex tactics. Aside from some obvious ideas like "try to flank" and "avoid OAs", tactics don't contribute much to the gameplay.

[Katana_Geldar]

Star Wars Saga all the way, it has a very good tactical system as well as starship manouvres and squad rules.

[Tengu_temp]

My first thought was to try D&D 4E (probably with some modifications, but those are unimportant right now). While this might not be a terrible idea, I am a little put-off by the fact that there are no rules for creating new monsters, and the rules for advancing existing monsters are pretty bland.

Er, there are rules for creating new monsters, further in the DMG.

I would recommend against 4E if you're looking for a tactical game, simply because it's written for easy accessibility, rather than complex tactics. Aside from some obvious ideas like "try to flank" and "avoid OAs", tactics don't contribute much to the gameplay.

Truth to be told, most tactical RPGs are not more complicated than that either.

[Lord Vampyre]

If you consider that Warhammer Fantasy is tactical game, then you add in Warhammer Fantasy RPG into the mix, you can get the best of both worlds with basically the same game concept.

It's not really what your asking for, but it is probably the closest thing to it. Your other option is Mech Warrior, same concept only with Battletech.

[Skorj]

Whatever happened to that company called Tactical Simulation Rules - did they ever make an RPG.

[Aroka]

For group tactical, definitely D&D 4E. 4E puts a big emphasis* on movement and positioning, with powers that cause movement and take advantage of positioning. You'll want to lower monster/creature/NPC hit points, though.

* Bigger than any RPG I've played, and that's a sample of some three dozen and odd games.

[Katana_Geldar]

Whatever happened to that company called Tactical Simulation Rules - did they ever make an RPG.

If they did, it must have sucked. Majorly!

[Ranos]

Hm... I feel that the fact that you only have 3 or 4 PCs on the battlefield contributes a lot to the lack of strategy. Especially since you only control one of them. All the RPG you cited let you control many units, since more people means more options, means more strategy. So basically, you'd need a RPG with a focus on war rather than personnal combat.

So...Play any RPG, preferably with a focus on diplomacy, politics, empire-building and war, and use a wargame system to resolve combat ?

[Aroka]

There's also an entire genre of platoon-level tactical games like Advanced Squad Leader, but I think they're kinda dead at this point.

There's that D&D 3.5 wargame, too - might be close to what you're looking for?

[erikun]

D&D 3.5 edition and D&D 4th edition are likely your best bets. 4th edition especially, as if you're using classes who can move opponents or where positioning matters (Fighter, Warlock, Wizard) then how you come at an opponent or and how you deal with them really matters.

Then again, I have never considered Final Fantasy Tactics to be a very tactical game. The most advanced tactic I ever used was "move main character to the right, opponent goes after main character, everyone backstab from the left."

Particularly, I'm interested in doing something similar to Final Fantasy Tactics where individual units could have class trees and such, but I could easily settle for less. What I really want is a system that focuses on tactical combat and is flexible enough to offer a variety of classes/creatures without being totally open-ended. Preferably, it should also be a medieval fantasy game.

This isn't really tactics as much as optimization. Pretty much every system you come across will allow you to build for the abilities you want. Ironically enough, 3.5e D&D is pretty bad at this, because taking several classes you like and putting them together will frequently give you unplayable garbage.

My first thought was to try D&D 4E (probably with some modifications, but those are unimportant right now). While this might not be a terrible idea, I am a little put-off by the fact that there are no rules for creating new monsters, and the rules for advancing existing monsters are pretty bland.

The 4e D&D rules for creating monsters are pretty amazing. In that one little table, you have the values you need for just about any kind of monster, along with what kind of damage it should be doing with each attack. Come up with an idea, consider the level, consider whether attacks should be "at-will" (fire demon throwing fireballs) or just once during the fight (pushing over the pillar), and you can figure out the attack bonuses and how much damage they "should" do for each.

[IdleMuse]

I think that really D&D 4e is what you're lookign for. It combines a level of tactics that you want without resorting to being a miniatures game (otherwise I'd suggest the Mordheim line of GW specialist games).

Otherwise, yay homebrew! This has given me some ideas.

[Axolotl]

4e is probably what your looking for. But to really capture the FFT sort of feeling you'd need to push up the size of combat and use as many splatbook type thing as you can. Realistically speaking you could do this with any edition of DnD by 4th is the nearest unmodified.

[Psyx]

So I will reiterate my question: Are there any tabletop rpgs focused on tactical combat, or any that could easily be used for such a system?

3.5 and 4e.

Both of these games are skirmish wargames first, and RPGs second. They are all about battlemaps and numbers. Nothing comes close.

If you want to go all retro about it, then how about some Chainmail?

[hamishspence]

Didn't Miniatures Handbook have some rules to make squad-level play easier- for loose skirmishing squads, and tight phalanx style squads?

[Simba]

Battletech/Mechwarrior work on that level, you do some roleplaying, then get into your mechs and do some mech combat, highly tactical :)

[Vitruviansquid]

I'm not sure what you're asking here...

Do you just want an RPG that has grids? If so, DnD 4e is one where there are even a couple class specializations geared specifically towards manipulating space and positioning on a tactical level. As others have said, it's got pretty good rules for new monsters, too.

What do you mean by a "class tree"?

[Thieves]

I will also have to second 4e. I thought about this, too, and came to the conclusion that still, as an RPG where the GM can allow and compute everything you throw at him, this allows for much more tactical flexibility than FFT. The only difference I see between 4e and FFT is that FFT had a bit more spells and ability variety allowed in battle per character (though that depends), And it had inter-battle customization, where you could swap the black mage into a ninja in the 5 minutes it took you to cross the corridor. If you want that, simply rule that you can spend XP to get class abilities / features and switch them after a rest.

FFT was as much about the atmosphere as about gameplay. It was Final Fantasy first and Tactics second ;]

[9mm]

Battletech/Mechwarrior work on that level, you do some roleplaying, then get into your mechs and do some mech combat, highly tactical :)

this... battletech can go from small tatical to full-blown intesteller strategic (though for sanity's sake I would recomend staying on the planetary level), hand how you deploy and tactics make obcene amouts of difference.

[Fax Celestis]

There's tabletop rules for FFT out there.

[Zen Master]

Are there any tabletop rpgs focused on tactical combat, or any that could easily be used for such a system?

It's gonna depend on who you ask, but yeah .... DnD 3.5.

[Enguhl]

There's tabletop rules for FFT out there.

Not specifically for FFT, but awesome none-the less. Some friends and I actually copied down some FFT maps and played it as such. At one point I even had some excel sheets to generate monsters at levels equal to the party.

On topic: If you want good tactical combat, GURPS does that pretty well. On the other hand, if you want FFT tactical combat, then I would go with the FFRPG (linked by Fax Celestis) or probably Runequest.

[FelixG]

this... battletech can go from small tatical to full-blown intesteller strategic (though for sanity's sake I would recomend staying on the planetary level), hand how you deploy and tactics make obcene amouts of difference.

It is insanely difficult to try to coordinate anything larger than a single regiment using the 3rd edition mechwarrior RPG + mercenary unit supplements :P

There's also an entire genre of platoon-level tactical games like Advanced Squad Leader, but I think they're kinda dead at this point.

There's that D&D 3.5 wargame, too - might be close to what you're looking for?

I think the one you are looking for is Fields of Blood, it works really well for Armies and the like, and its easily converted over to really any setting (i am working at the moment on a Homeworld style homebrew using it)

http://index.rpg.net/display-entry.phtml?mainid=7310

Theres a link to it

[Croverus]

Didn't Miniatures Handbook have some rules to make squad-level play easier- for loose skirmishing squads, and tight phalanx style squads?

Wuoting hamish because he has a point. Dnd 3.5 has the Miniatures handbook, which even has the Healer and War Brute classes to add more customization to troops. It has rules for squad level combat and scenarios for how armies can be formed and what purpose PCs can serve in a large scale battle. Give it a look.

[9mm]

It is insanely difficult to try to coordinate anything larger than a single regiment using the 3rd edition mechwarrior RPG + mercenary unit supplements :P

true; but Intester Operations is out now so salvage and transpo is updated to fourth ed, and if what I've seen of Universe at War is accurate, so will man-power, however given the univers a regiment was as big as any merc unit should GET, because FASA so goofed the galactic economy's scale.

[valadil]

I would recommend against 4E if you're looking for a tactical game, simply because it's written for easy accessibility, rather than complex tactics. Aside from some obvious ideas like "try to flank" and "avoid OAs", tactics don't contribute much to the gameplay.

I disagree. You don't need tactics to play 4e, but if you use tactics you benefit. Some characters are more tactical than others too.

What really helps bring out the tactics in a 4e game is interesting terrain and movement abilities. Before starting my current game I played through FF: Tactics, just to get an idea of what to aim for (and because I hadn't played it yet and that needed amending). My players all agree that it's the most tactical game they've played and have even busted out the iPhone to play FF: Tactics music during fights.

One thing I do that I haven't seen elsewhere is I use a lot of 3d terrain. I build the scene with Construx and then I put the enemies in whatever position looks most advantageous (although I'll move them out of position if the players are smart leading up to the battle. This works pretty well as a way to both challenge them with fights and reward them for scouting and being intelligent.) Unfortunately it does mean that combats can't be made up on the fly, as terrain takes a little too long to build right before an unexpected fight.

Another idea I had, but haven't gotten to try yet was to take a page out of Valkyria Chronicles. Each player controls a number of PCs. I was leaning towards 3. On your turn one of your PCs gets a full turn. The others get to ready actions.

What gave me this idea is a semi-modern GURPs game I'm in. It was advertised as tactical gunfighting, but didn't really work out that way. We mostly just lob shots at the other side until we win, mainly because my character can reliably head shot from 1.5km away. Anyway, the other players were talking about how the way this type of combat should work would involve a lot more of hiding behind cover and readying shots in case enemies come out of cover, while one person moves ahead. That seemed like VC to me, so I figured borrowing their movement mechanics ought to work to encourage this type of play. I couldn't really see this working in a melee based game though. It makes a lot more sense when most of the characters have automatic weapons capable of suppression fire.

- addendum -

Just to clarify why I think this sort of movement would be interesting, it's because you don't get to move all that often. There's a sweet spot for how much movement you get to do. Too little and it doesn't matter. If everyone moves two squares at a time, you converge and then you stay put. Too much movement and anyone can reach any point on the board, so movement doesn't matter.

However, if you give players some movement they can reach interesting locations. Not anywhere on the board, but they can go look around that next corner. If you make them wait longer between movements (like you would be if you have one movement action to split among three characters), it becomes more important that characters who are waiting to move are placed somewhere interesting. You'll want to position them where they can supply cover fire each round, not where they're standing around looking bored. I think that getting the maximum amount of suppression fire out of each PC without putting them in danger will be tactically interesting.

[gdiddy]

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/3072/necromunda

[Bagelz]

it sounds like you are looking for a wargame, instead of an rpg.
I agree with gdiddy who recomended necromunda, and Warhammer is very tactical turn based (closer to an RTS but turn based) if you are looking for large armies.

Also i think chainmail, or dnd minis - skirmish rules might be close to what you are looking for.

[Cedrass]

I never tried it, but wouldn't this Facing alternate set of rules for 3.5 give a more tactical feel to the game?

[Meta]

If you don't like 4e but warhammer and 40k are a bit too large scale, you could play like Warhammer Skirmish or w/e theyre calling it. Its about small squads and pretty tactic heavy.

Pretty sure no matter how you slice it, if you're picking the best the market has to offer, you're just going to slide up and down the scale of combat vs. roleplay. And I'm sure someone will chime in and say, "you can roleplay in any system, if you can't its not the modules fault, you're just uncreative, blah, blah" but obviously some RPGs cater more toward roleplay and others rollplay