RPGs with good warband mechanics

[TheAlkaizer]

Hi!

I'm going to attempt to use your collective knowledge.

I've slowly been coalescing ideas over the path few months for an RPG I'd like to design.

I think that I'm mostly interested to making something that supports and encourages a warband scope. It would support the traditional four or five players with each a single character. But the game advancement would slowly encourage you to participate in the setting, try to leave your mark, offer the DM some tools to procedurally create events and have the world evolve. I really like the idea of accruing followers and possibly having the option to do bigger scale battles. I don't think I'm too interested to expand all the way into big domain play and have army battles. But the idea of a 5-30 individuals scale is appealing to me.

I'm really torn between including fantasy elements or sticking to a purely medieval historical analogue.

Anyway, I've got half a dozen set of rules that I've went over. Their often too complicated to my taste or really lean too hard in the "mass" scale battle with having a castle and stuff like that. So I'm wondering if the knowledgeable individuals of ENWorld could enlighten me to either: games that tackle this scope of play, or games that have interesting/enjoyable/efficient rules for it.

Thank you!

 

[GMMichael]

Since you're designing, I'll assume you're not afraid of tinkering. You could use Modos RPG's combat module for band (or smaller) conflict just as easily as individual hero combat. Most of the conversions would just be renaming, like this:

Standard Name	Modified Name	Note
Character	Unit	Units are groups of up to 10 soldiers
Physical Health	Strength	Health becomes how many soldiers are able or willing to fight
Mental/Metaphysical Health	Morale	Morale can be chipped away like strength
Offensive Posture	Front Line
Defensive Posture	Rear Line
Weapon	Unit Type	Spearmen, archers, mages, etc.
Disabled	Routed	At half strength, a unit flees or surrenders

So the bones are already there for big battles. Instead of trying to reduce a single opponent's health, you're trying to reduce a unit's strength. The extended conflict and combat modules already account for superiority in numbers and tactical decisions (to attack, defend, or move), but you might want to tinker with these rules:

• Defensive damage: normally, a spearman can still attack an archer behind cover, but she's limited to one point of damage. It keeps the combat moving while rewarding the defender. If it doesn't make sense for a unit of spearmen to damage an archers unit that's way in the back, you'll want to declare that some units are immune to minimum damage at times.
• Token positioning: mapping is probably more fun for big battles than theatre-of-the-mind. You'd still want an offensive "zone" for the front line, with the defensive zone on either side of it for rear lines. Units on the front line (while there is one) should be able to freely attack nearby units, but it would be reasonable to charge a movement action for moving farther than the next unit over.
• Unit health: with no death rules, deciding on how much of a unit's strength is salvageable is up to the GM. However, a routed unit will not rejoin the current battle, so keep your clerics moving!
• Weakened: since the battle rules focus on combat strength (in numbers), a unit with reduced strength shows it weakness by doing less damage. Any damage dice rolled by a unit with reduced (but greater than 50%) strength are lowered by one die type.
• Hero bonuses: gotta have heroes! When a hero (PC) joins a unit, that unit uses the PC's character sheet while the hero is still active. Extant unit damage carries over, however: if the unit had damage prior to the PC joining, that damage carries over to the PC's sheet. If the hero falls (by 1] choosing a number between 1 and 20, and 2] an attacking unit rolls this number on its attack contest die), the hero's damage carries over to the unit's character sheet (which could rout that unit).

How would it play out?

Spoiler: Let's try it!

The PCs might have a warband with a swordsmen unit, a shieldmen unit, archers, and a cavalry unit (if they're lucky). Your opponent (the GM) isn't as well prepared, but has numbers: 6 conscript units with axes. PCs roll initiative contests versus the GM's to see if any PCs have priority over GM moves. The conscripts form up and advance, and the swordsmen and shieldmen advance. The swords and shields will be easily surrounded, so they'll depend on the cavalry to harass enemy flanks. The cavalry can do this in the same way as the normal rules: being mounted costs one action, and the unit is considered defensive unless it interacts directly with another unit.

The battle starts when the conscripts move up with a four-unit front line and a two-unit quick-reaction-force behind. No actions are necessary yet - combat hasn't started. But the PC archers want to get a shot - which they can do from defensive posture, safely against the conscripts as long as their initiative contests are higher than the conscripts. Otherwise, the archers will need to wait for the conscripts to initiate, and a Con attack result might involve some arrows hitting allies (up to GM, depending on positioning and the attack result). Say the archers get the drop on the conscripts: the unit rolls for attack and damage. The conscripts can afford to defend: they outnumber the PCs. So the conscripts use an action to defend, get a Con, and assign the PC's damage (of 4, for example) to the target conscript unit, less their armor protection. Even if wearing plate armor, the conscripts must take a minimum of 1 damage to their strength due to the minimum damage rule, so progress isn't wasted. In this example, they'd take 2 damage, meaning that 2 conscripts from one of the units die, flee, or give up. If those 2 points are later miraculously removed (maybe the NPCs have their own hero unit), it indicates that 2 conscripts regain their bravery, rejoin the fight, or receive the strength of their 2 fallen comrades.

The archers use their next action to reload, and each side places their front line tokens where they want to begin combat. The four-unit-front of the conscripts can collapse around the two-unit front of the PCs on any action taken by the conscripts, since each movement involves the next closest unit. If the left flank of the conscripts wanted to end-around and sweep the right side of the PCs, it would cost an action to move.

The PCs try to stall with their shieldmen: that unit will only use actions for defense. They plan to place the swordsmen behind the shieldmen, attacking the conscripts around either side of the shieldmen. The cavalry, with its two actions remaining after applying one action to maintain its mounted status, can attack any enemy unit to which they would reasonably have access - the advantage of being horsed. Damaging the cavalry is difficult - they're hard to hit since they're usually counted as defensive, and their mobility allows them to attack the conscripts while they're either busy or out of actions, making it hard to defend against cavalry . . .

Note that this example uses only the standard Modos RPG rules, with some GM discretion for moving units into or within offensive posture.

 

[soviet]

Hi!

I'm going to attempt to use your collective knowledge.

I've slowly been coalescing ideas over the path few months for an RPG I'd like to design.

I think that I'm mostly interested to making something that supports and encourages a warband scope. It would support the traditional four or five players with each a single character. But the game advancement would slowly encourage you to participate in the setting, try to leave your mark, offer the DM some tools to procedurally create events and have the world evolve. I really like the idea of accruing followers and possibly having the option to do bigger scale battles. I don't think I'm too interested to expand all the way into big domain play and have army battles. But the idea of a 5-30 individuals scale is appealing to me.

I'm really torn between including fantasy elements or sticking to a purely medieval historical analogue.

Anyway, I've got half a dozen set of rules that I've went over. Their often too complicated to my taste or really lean too hard in the "mass" scale battle with having a castle and stuff like that. So I'm wondering if the knowledgeable individuals of ENWorld could enlighten me to either: games that tackle this scope of play, or games that have interesting/enjoyable/efficient rules for it.

Thank you!

My first thought here is Apocalypse World. A bunch of the characters are gang leaders, settlement leaders, and stuff like that. Part of chargen is deciding the gang's configuration, ans choosing between different gang sizes, levels of equipped-ness, morale, skill, etc. This is in the form of choosing between different narrative style traits and bonuses rather than some detailed points buy.

 

[overgeeked]

The Dune RPG does various scales quite well. Though the game is far too heavy for my tastes. Lighter games can go any scale with ease. Things like Fate, Cortex, Over the Edge 3E, Discworld, etc. Just stat up the warband as you would a character and go.

 

[jdrakeh]

It's not quite a roleplaying game, but there's an old wargame by FGU called Archworld that comes very close. If you can find it cheap, it's worth a look (I've considered adapting it into a roleplaying game ala OD&D many times).

 

[Thondor]

I r
an a lot of "squad" and then some big battles in Dungeons Unleashed. Here's a write up Dungeons Unleashed Battle System

You can grab the full beta rules as a free PDF. System uses multiple opposed d12s and the GM to make judgements on the relative strength of units.

 

[aramis erak]

Seconding Dune (bias note: playtester for the starter set and the econ system).

Likewise, the system in FFG's Deathwatch works reasonably well.

I always really hard felt the scale shifts in Battletech, but less so in Mekton 2. (Noting that I've not run a campaign of Mekton, and the BT campaigns I was in fizzled. Partly because I had a severe manic episode.)

 

[sevenbastard]

Maybe start with a skirmish level war game and add the RP elements? Lots of good ones out there for diffrent genres.

Or of you are using something like B/X a player can easily run 3 or 4 extra 1st level fighters in addition to thier main charachter.

 

[TheAlkaizer]

Lots of good recommendations. I'll have some reading to do during the holidays, see what works well and what doesn't!

Maybe start with a skirmish level war game and add the RP elements? Lots of good ones out there for diffrent genres.

Or of you are using something like B/X a player can easily run 3 or 4 extra 1st level fighters in addition to thier main charachter.

I'm open to tinkering with that! Any recommendations?

 

[Atlatl Jones]

My first thought here is Apocalypse World. A bunch of the characters are gang leaders, settlement leaders, and stuff like that. Part of chargen is deciding the gang's configuration, ans choosing between different gang sizes, levels of equipped-ness, morale, skill, etc. This is in the form of choosing between different narrative style traits and bonuses rather than some detailed points buy.

I agree that Apocalypse World does this well. There’s a fantasy/medieval hack of 2nd edition that I played for a while.

Savage Worlds also handles groups of followers well, though it doesn’t really feature in any of its settings.