Mass Combat In RPG's [And How To make Them Work]
#rpg #ttrpg #gamemasteradvice
As a game master, you've decided that a large scale battle would fit perfectly into your world. Not only that, this mass combat aligns itself with what the PC's are attempting to accomplish. Yet, it's intimidating. Do you use rules from a table top war game like Warhammer or Rune Lords? Do you try to use a GDW product and implement the tables and troop movement scales into your already full plate?
How about this: make the combat about the players. In today's video we discuss how to implement large scale massive battles into your campaign setting. These simple set of rules are system agnostic and require little work on the game master during the game itself. There is some prep needed, but not a whole lot.
How do we take something so intense and confusing and morph it into something you can easily do at the table? Easily! Just like when we write stories, we like to organize them in a certain way, and like those, we use a flow chart to get our massive battles prepared and easy to run at the table.
The flow chart will help the massive battle go by more smoothly, giving you a sense of what happens during the course of the fight, but is centered on the PC's, not the massive block of troops. If we wanted to play a war game, we'd break out Harpoon or I Ain't Been Shot Mum, but instead we choose to play an RPG. With this knowledge, it is important as game masters to make the massive battle focused on the PC's and not everyone else, yet implement their choices in such a way that it'll sway what is going on around them.
Hopefully this video allows you to think more about putting a massive battle into your RPG's. Remember, don't force it. Yet if it's a natural progression in the game, no matter the setting, these guidelines you can modify should do the trick to making it much easier and smooth.
Special Thanks:
Stefan Celic (Awesome Future Soldier Rendering)
ElectricSocks (Sci-Fi City Mod)
GURPS Mass Combat:
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/...
Traveller Mass Combat:
http://blog.mongoosepublishing.co.uk/...