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Can Warding be abused this way?


Pentallion

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10 hours ago, styopa said:

If we want to explore mechanics, a few principles come to mind:

- in the same sense that a single entity's power resists and delivers magical effects, I'd submit that there is some mechanism (focused on the unit standard?) by which soldiers in a unit become themselves an entity, and thus resist things collectively.  Squads, battalions, regiments, divisions, armies - all might 'collectivize' the POW of their participants at weaker and weaker individual component contribution, but collectively become more powerful.  Thus there's the Gloranthan parallel to the most ancient IRL principle of mass and concentration = efficacy.  I'd suspect 'collective resistance' is an easier thing to achieve than 'collective offense' thus explaining why the Lunars having figured the latter out makes them so formidable on the battlefield.

- formations THEMSELVES may have power.  A square/phalanx/schiltron might in the sense of the Earth rune make them stronger, less likely to break/run, etc.

- I personally LIKE castles, fortifications, and such in my fantasy world; I have always vaguely handwaved that any such fortification is imbued with powerful magics that make the "just have a 10cbm earth elemental wreck the foundations" functionally impossible (and conversely, still make such fortifications slow, complex, and expensive to build).  I'd love to actually have a mechanic behind this.

 

FWIW I'd submit the only spell I'm aware of in RQ3 that implied how staggeringly powerful "unit magics" would be is Xiola Umbar's Group Defense - think about this for a unit of 10 individuals? (10m dia sphere):

Group Defense 3 points
ranged, duration till dropped, stackable, reusable
This spell is active, maintained by the will of the casting priestess.
It creates a veil-like barrier which encloses a sphere 5 meters in radius centering on the priestess. All those contained within the barrier lose one magic point into this barrier when it forms-they may not choose to withhold the magic point or to add more points. 

Any creature attempting to pass the barrier automatically takes damage directly to a random hit location, ignoring armor, equal to the number of magic points in the barrier. This spell is stackable, in which case each person within the barrier spends 1 magic point per spell stacked, and the damaging effect is accordingly increased.
 

 

I think you have pointed at the basic mechanism and the strength / weakness of unified groups versus "pick up" groups.

The "Group" needs structure, cohesion and a focal point method. ALL require, practice, trust, faith and co-ordination. Parts of this are easily the realm of traits / passions / loyalties. Parts relate to the elements of organisation and "command" structure. A classic example being the file, group / platoon, company organisation of regular forces with people designated, support and magic personnel, orders and "Battle Drill" response commands with the recognised & organised chain to carry out / enforce these. Non-regular groups rely on the clan, family, stead structure - generally often more erratic and with weak points. "veterans" have far greater experience, more sanguine, have learn't the systems. Elites have belief in difference, us as special, group expectations and commitment to what makes us different / superior - even be it a silly stubbornness over uniform and pride in it  - I'm not kidding ask ACW afficionardos about the Iron Brigade (to all external measures totally raw and short on training) - held together in a reactive eliteness because of the mickey they took for their old odd uniform. Wargamers call this the silly hats, bizzare titles and big nosed leaders effect.

As for mechanism's for the confrontation - Runes and their relationships, total factor from Magic Points, a value judgement of the intergration and structure, cohesiveness (to me this is a (the?) biggie as it's BELIEF that vital macgic/mental/psychic factor = mind over matter (all too real in bulk military confrontations).

So counters are group organised support - demoralise, dismiss / dispel magic. My personal view is mental factors to dominate. The physical effects affecting direct action and only secondarily the groups "magic self"

Non regulars and Raw etc suffer as there is less cohesion in spells, so incomplete results / belief (my mates have bladesharp or protection or both I have none or only 1 so Ifeel bad, feel less.

Is there the understanding of the groups limits - when do a significant some run out / low on ability. what are the Max, Min, Mode and Median / Quartiles of Power Magic points. AS members drop out - even go Unconscious the Magical Whole becomes weaker and more ragged. Perhaps compounded by reducing / failing belief.

Aren't these many of the things implicitly and explicitly covered / discussed under the concept of Magic Factors in WBRM, NG and Warhamster?

Sorry for parts of the analyst speak but then that's what I am and those skills are a big part of why I enjoy RPG's.

As an off the wall or out of left field thought - look at NLP (neurolinguistic programming) for the power words and beliefs, anthropolgy or religious studies or mythology for the powers of faith, motif and communal belief.

I have used the above committee game and krieg spiel larger scale combat for / in RPG's before. I admit I'm bad using these as principles and story gaming the impacts, effects, success and failure the great bulk of the time. Here I've found the Big Issue is to get the pace and response stuff right. Group anything (if they are sizable) Is Slow! Perception & knowledge / experience is critical as almost nothing "goes right 1st time" or as a rapid response. Spotting in time to be organised is really important. Those engaged, distracted, otherwise preoccupied are ripe for surprise!

Hope others find these musings and my experience of value

 

Cheers,

Brennan

Edited by Furry Fella
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12 hours ago, g33k said:

As a handwave, I understand this.   But for gaming purposes (in the notorious "GNS Theory" model), or from a narrative-input perspective, what can I (RP'ing the commander of the shieldwall) do to harden my defenses?  What can I (RP'ing the commander of the attackers) do to break their formation?  Are there defineed mechanical knobs I can adjust?  Are there defined narrative keywords I can call upon?

Tough questions, ranging from the high-valuting all the way to "give me something to roll!" then.

Ok, let's assume we are taking the way spirit combat works in Dragon Pass (under the Corbett rules). The attacking spirits need to overcome the Magic Factor of the defending units, in stacked order. There are two types of defenders - those who can only resist by being too big to be eaten, with no Range Factor, and those with a Range Factor of zero or greater (and no spirit away on detached duty) that can bite back against the attacking spirits. Again, there is pretty much the choice between "too big to be eaten" or "yum".

Having a Range Factor even of zero is rather exceptional, so your average tight formation unit is trying to be too big to be eaten.

(For some weird reason, I get pictures of allosauri trying to hunt a diplocodus herd. Maybe not the worst visualization for this kind of combat. Wolves and bison work, too.)

 

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When I pick up the dice, what am I rolling?  What can I add?  What can each side do to impose a penalty on THEM or gain a bonus for US?

That's sort of the crux with these attacks - they ignore you as individual (in a bad way - if you encounter this spirit as an individual, you're toast) and only can be countered by keeping together.

Imagine the unit holding fast, except for a bunch of new arrivals in the last rank who break away, and perish gruesomely to whatever visual effect the attacking spirit offers. To the unit as a whole, such peripheral loss is hardly noticeable. To the player character holding fast watching what failure to do so means it is a different story.

 

I am trying to provide my inner visuals when writing about this. I have read a couple of fantasy books or series which deal with threats like this, classics like The Black Company which has individual demigod-like sorcerers rather than groups of magicians, but similar battlefield effects, the Thraxas series, or the big siege epics like Gemmel's Legend. Nick Brooke's rewrite of "And the Band Played Waltzing Mathilda", "And the Band Played March of the Goddess", helps to bring the Gallipoli horror to a magical assault, too.

Basically, you have to be able to describe what is going on in this magical part of the battle.

 

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That's just gaming the mechanics; that's not actually DOING something in-world, not character action.  What can my CHARACTER do to force imperfections -- or resist being forced into them?

That's the nasty thing about magical strikes, artillery or air strikes on formations: very little. "Shields up" against a hail of arrows or slingstones makes sense. "Strengthen the Standard/the regimental god/wyter" is the weak magical analogy which I tried to simulate with that coordinated MP donation.

 

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An interesting improvisation.  I like it!

But what does it DO?  The unit is now stronger, more "united".  When I pick up the dice, what am I rolling?  What's the difference -- to defender and/or attacker -- in the roll/difficulty/outcome if the unit sacrificed, or didn't?

That's the crux of it - your battle resolution system that allows to deal with units while keeping some personal experience for the character included in some formation or other.

It won't do to handle a battle in combat rounds, unless you are doing the heroic stuff like champions' battle. As your character doesn't get the choice to go where you want him to go but where his unit goes, the entire battle experience is more a collection of impressions and occasional saving throws to allocate or reduce adverse effects. And I have yet to see a rpg that makes this a core activity of its combat mechanism and a gripping and interesting one too. You can provide some between action low level heroics by pulling back wounded comrades from the front line, or stepping up for some, but that gets rather long in the tooth pretty soon, too.

If you want roleplaying fun, avoid set battles, or use them only as the backdrop for the activity between battles. Battles are the grandfathers of railroading and dicing orgies.

 

So, each unit has a regimental deity. Preferably a fearsome fighting thing that stands up to face the attacking spirit. The joint action is to manifest it to intercept the spirit attack, and hope that the manifestation will survive the onslaught of the spirit.

To give the players some agency, let them roll for this manifestation. All of them look through the eyes of their deity, all feel its extremities and (if present) weapons and armor.

 

So what happens if it fails to deflect that onslaught? Total party kill should not be the result. A unit becomes a casualty when suffering deaths, injuries and defections, and the individuals in that unit each will face consequences like being stunned out of consciousness, suffering a debilitating wound, possibly dying if not rescued by comrades. The horrible, shell-shocked aftermath. Which just might be fun to play, every now and then.

 

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I note, BTW, that this clever notion represents a patch over a "hole" in the rules, i.e. a rule not available to be used (that being said, it's perhaps not a terribly important hole -- mass combat IS the realm of wargames, after all:  the mass-combat games that RPG's branched off from 40some years ago to focus on individual heroes going on personal adventures...  HOWEVER, given that WBRM and NG are foundational/definitional documents for Glorantha, and the new RQG is evidently going to have a strong "Hero Wars" focus, the wargame-y discussion seems apropos...)

So, getting back to the mass combat in Glorantha... is there any "prisoner's dilemma" effect, where a lone non-sacrificing hold-out (or a few of them!) might have personally-better survival, at an extreme cost to the Unit? 

The results of fear- or madness-based magic on individual combats is pretty well documented. The sheer reality of a battle situation might be enough to have each character in a unit (and his neighboring comrades) roll against such effects as the battle looms. A certain percentage of lost hearts won't break the unit, too much of it and it will disperse.

Dragon Pass is especially cruel when it comes to emissary duty to Delecti, the Hydra, or the Ivory Plinth. Losing an emissary unit on a failed alliance attempt feels somewhat unfair but not evil. Losing it on a success however... Wyrm's Footnotes told that story.

 

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I tend to think not, FWIW -- any "hold out" will represent a weak spot in the Line, and that tends to be where the defenders have the worst casualties.  The MP sacrifice offers some unit-benefit, but from a "selfish" POV the real buy-in is that you've joined into the protective magic, and the Unit defenses encompass you, too.

But what are those defenses, expressed as RPG-mechanics?  I'm going to keep bringing it back to this -- what are the mechanics?  What can I call upon (as attacker or defender) to enhance my roll, or impair my enemies roll?

For the spirit attack, I suggest a "champion's battle" between the unit deity representation and the attacking spirit. The spirit attack doesn't take all day, the sent spirits have a few rounds during which they either overwhelm the defenders, or if not, they must retreat.

 

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Because I keep seeing all the ways that my PC's can invoke the game-rules to negate so many of the "ancient/medieval tropes," magic'ing my way past defenses that are derived from a world that never had to face magic-wielding "adventurers".

If they feel they, as individuals, can do better than their regimental deity buffed up with hundreds of magic points to ward off a spirit even bigger than that, it's their funeral. If they really can do it, what are they doing in a mundane formation? Maybe that's their designated role in the battle, to come to the forth when the spirits get rolling.

 

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I see SOME magic for the defenders, but not on the scale of the physical defenses -- castles are a HUGE mundane investment of time & money and effort, and should be as hard a nut to crack magically as they are mundanely (similarly for the skilled soldiers of a phalanx or similarly-trained formations).  Show me the mechanics!

That's the other problem there is with roleplaying magics - they tend to be short term use under duress effects, and ignore the long lasting, long to prepare and (let's face it) not very exciting crafting of spells. Stuff done in the "catch-up" time between heart-throbbing action.

There are players who do enjoy this kind of "build and expand" for their characters, and the rules should cater to them. Give us "ritual spells" which explain why these easily thought of bypasses don't usually work.

I'm not the designer, not even a designer. But this is a gaming itch that my rpg characters rarely if ever managed to scratch. Also because it causes work for the DM, hampers his narrative opportunities later on, and easily unleashes potentially overpowered stuff into a campaing, breaking the rules reality in an arms race to still be able to hurt the characters (whose players have a vested interest in making that impossible).

Telling how it is excessive verbis

 

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I love set battles in Glorantha.  Using WarHamster, I've run the Battle of Iceland I think 3 times.  It's always gone differently for the PCs even though the battle generally follows closely to the script.  That battle should win roleplaying awards for being so well designed.  It works perfectly with WarHamster rules.

Geek is derailing this thread in a most interesting and fun way.  I, too, have wondered why certain real world tactics keep getting employed in the face of a magical world.  For example, the cavalry charge can really be wrecked in Glorantha even without Agimori pikemen.  Earth elementals are impressive vs charging mounts. Now we've got earth elementals hoisting up hula hoops of doom.  Makes me wonder why anyone rides mounts at all.

Yes, a company of sorcerers can smother an entire regiment.  Like being mowed down by machine guns.  A few hundred Maran Gor cultists can cast their spell to  open up a crack in the earth (yeah, the name of the spell escapes me right now) and the combined castings all stack which means we just swallowed up 10,000 hoplites just like in the board game.  Runequest does a fantastic job of providing spells that perfectly simulate the board games grandest magic.

But still a phalanx of hoplite led spearmen is a thing to behold in Glorantha.  That 18AP shield says "Magic?  We don't need no stinkin magic!"

And in all the battles I've ever run using WarHamster, all that major Runequest magic would take out big chunks of troops on one side and be answered by their own devastating magics wiping out a big chunk of the other side and when all was said and done, the magics were all used up and it came down to sword bashing or one last gasp by one side that finally routed the other.

Or the trolls rising up out of the ground just when all seemed lost.

When you get right down to it, war in Glorantha is very much the meat grinder that war was in WW1.  The offensive firepower of magic way outweighs the defensive capabilities of magic so that people just get eaten up.

Edited by Pentallion
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