Mass Battle

[Groffa]

[Rob Lang]

Definitely the right place to put this. I'll have a look this weekend.

By the way, still loving the magic items on your blog. Will be doing a blog entry on it soon. Keep it up!

[Groffa]

Ah, I was just about to edit my first post and saying that I've done some testing now (wrote a simulator for it), and come to the conclusion that it still needs a lot of work, even at this level (the basic math didn't work the way I thought of it). So you may have the weekend off, Rob!

OT: And thanks for still keeping an eye on my blog!

[Rob Lang]

I'll pause, let me know when I can go again!

[Kinslayer]

This is a very lethal setup. Soldiers will drop pretty quickly. The hit and damage die are counterintuitive. What they are really indicating is the number of misses and the number of survivors. That's the reverse of most game systems. Nothing in the system is used for troop quality. That is, a modern commando of Special Air Service with full materiel and a pack of preschoolers armed with spitwads are nominally regarded equally. Equipment, leadership, and tactics are likewise ignored. I am assuming that all troops hit with an automatic hit, and all fail on an automatic miss; this isn't clear. Some guide to assigning dice would be very useful. There is an interesting glitch in that a lower die is more beneficial, but also automatically misses more often. 1D4 only has normal hits half of the time.

You have succeeded in your stated goal to make a mass battle system that is independent of setting or system. It would seem to work best as a casual dice game by itself, but could also be used for quick resolution of battle in pretty much any game system.

[Groffa]

Kinslayer: you're absolutely right. It's an underdeveloped system that needs more working on.

I haven't worked anything more on Mass Battle, but it planted some other game ideas in my head that I'll try to develop instead. Anyway, thanks for the input!

EDIT: By the way, any suggestions on similar (mass combat) systems out there? That's light on the rules but still fun?