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GM mastering tips


Lloyd Dupont

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Pardon for the very open ended lightly specified question but....
I have a few large battle coming up in the campaign and I am not too sure how to role play them.. any tip?
And I guess I should come with clever tactic on both side.. 😕 

 

Anyway the backstory and details are as follow:

Our current fantasy campaign is heading towards a few large invasion battle between an invading orc army and our player's defending clan army. Which is Viking clans style force in their homeland supplemented by a few Dark Elves and their power alien Magic.
I plan to increase the tension, and hopefully make them being from earshot from enemy leader (the son of Grumpch, an Orc demigod, surrounded by his lieutenant), the orc magic is a few basic sorcery (+4 blunt weapon, heal, confuse) and they also have a few Necromancers and a few Life shaper (they have the create monsters from advanced sorcery) - hence a few huge and scary monsterly mounts.
The player's side force has some basic sorcery (the divine magic) and some advanced Dark Elf magic and perhaps 1 dragon. They have a little bit better armor (marginally) and obviously fortification, if any, are on their side.

Probably the first town should fall and then the combat should drag on the second town.
Then both forces are going to be third partied by an army of spectres and, hopefully, should come to an agreement against the spectre... The orc were only there because the spectres chased them from their ancestral homes, i.e. their land was cursed as a prisoner reported.
(if I can not make the on the fly switcheroo where the Orc join the viking against the spectres, The army of spectres should ravage both side direly... but I got another trump card to save the player eventually...)

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What I normally do is to treat each part of the army as a unit and allocate stats to it.

In a 2-way contest, I normally keep it simple and say Roll 1D6, on 1-X, Side A wins, X+1-6 Y wins.

Then I give bonuses for magic etc.

So, in your case, split the Orc army up into divisions, give the Player Town fryrds, or militias and go from there.

Here's how I would do it:

  • Normally, Orcs vs militia, Orcs win on 1-4, Militia win on 5-6.
  • The Militia are defending a town, so it moves one to the left, 1-3/4-6.
  • Orcs have sorcery, PCs have sorcery, so they cancel out.
  • Orcs have Necromancers which moves it to 1-4/5-6.
  • Orcs can create monsters which moves it to 1-5/6.
  • Militia have better armour, which moves it back to 1-4/5-6.

The Dragon is a unit by itself, so orcs win on 1, Dragon on 2-6.

You can adjust the figures however you want.

Victory means the opposing unit is damaged, routed or destroyed, each moves their chance of the next victory back by one, if they are moved from victory on a 6 then they are pretty much out of the battle.

I have used this for a few Dark Age battles recently and it has worked reasonably well.

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Simon Phipp - Caldmore Chameleon - Wallowing in my elitism since 1982. Many Systems, One Family. Just a fanboy. 

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5 hours ago, Lloyd Dupont said:

I have a few large battle coming up in the campaign and I am not too sure how to role play them.. any tip?

I hate to say it but...

Spoiler

I wave my hands in the air... as if I just did not care... insert pop music here...handwavium, handwavium, handwavium!

So seriously, should I decide what I want the party to have to react to! Or do I let what I know of what the players would enjoy dictate how the battle goes? Either or... Will a running retreat from the Balrog with a fave NPC crying out "You shall not pass!" be cool and will the players dig it? Or are they just about ready for the victorious battle scene from 300 as they wade though victim after victim after victim, all falling bloodied and quite possible headless and limbless Think about it, do you roll your dungeons? Or do you created cult and mold them with care? 

Go to 3:47 if ya want to save time. Or watch it all... (2nd choice is better)!

  

Edited by Bill the barbarian

... remember, with a TARDIS, one is never late for breakfast!

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Mythras has a good system for battles in Ships and Shieldwalls. I've used it lots of times in my Anglo-Saxon Campaign to resolve combats between war bands. 

It's relatively simple and the players can control a war band, even if they don't actually command it, to keep their interest

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