Do you use Morale in your games?

[greentongue]

A Morale Table is included in EPT (and OD&D if I recall).

I read an interesting article about how the battle for Troy was a sort of dividing line between "Heroic" warfare and "Unit" warfare.
The theory being that at the beginning, the battles were fought between individual men and by the end the battles were fought between units of men fighting shield to shield.

Chinese stories are also rife with individual battles between leaders with the out come of their battles seriously affecting the morale of the rest of the troops.

So, tying this all together, does anyone use this for their mass battles?

Where the player character challenges the opponent's leader(s) and if they beat them, or the leader(s) refuses, the opponent gets a reduction in morale.
(This has the effect of causing them to "break and run" easier or outright surrender.)

If ransoming is used, the money gained is even better than killing them.
(Obviously this implies the opponents are hunamiods.)
=

[philotomy]

Yes, I use morale (both for enemy troops and for NPC friendlies). It's often a large factor in combat.

[makofan]

I definitely use morale. Sometimes it works in favour of the players, and sometimes it doesn't. It just makes sense that if your group kills 10 orcs without losing any, the last two might run or surrender (or fight to the death of course)

[Deleted]

Absolutely, for both enemies & NPC's. I like the randomness, & yes, both philotomy's & makofan's posts are right on the money: To me, morale not only makes sense, but it really does play a large factor in combat (with sometimes hilarious & surprising results! ;D).

[coffee]

I intend to use morale, but not from a table.

I think the situation will speak for itself, as in the example of the Orcs, above. I may occasionally roll a die if I can't decide.

But I don't think I'll need a table for that (certainly not the one from Chainmail's mass combat rules; that one gave me a headache).

I'm trying to get away from lots of rules. I used to have a tendency to follow them slavishly, regardless of the result. That's why I want to be involved in OD&D; it cuts across that mentality and allows you to just get on with the game.

[makofan]

How I plan to do it is somewhat simple - just make a decision. If truly undecided, pick a target probablility and roll dice

[coffee]

Exactly.

The important thing is what's going on in the game, not what some table says.

[philotomy]

Yeah, I only roll the dice for morale if the question seems up in the air, to me; in that case a quick roll can give me nudge one way or the other.

[foster1941]

I think morale (the notion that everybody won't always do exactly as they're told or fight to the death) is an important concept, and drastically changes the shape of the game -- if the party's fighting a dozen orcs it makes a big differenceif they'll only have to kill 3 or 4 of them (or maybe just the leader) vs. having to kill all 12 of them. The problem is that morale is hard to model in rules -- in order to take into account all of the factors it should, you end up with something way too complex to use in a real-time context (the morale rules in Chainmail are a perfect example: they're very comprehensive and seemingly quite realistic, but they're also insanely complicated). The best solution is probably to "free kriegspiel" it -- the referee applies his judgment to decide if troops' morale holds or breaks at key junctures -- but even that's an imperfect solution since it requires the DM to make a lot of snap judgments and also tends to minimize the various morale-effecting rules effects (charisma, certain humanoids in daylight or when their tribal standard is present, etc.). While a veteran referee can probably handle all this with no problem, a newbie might be overwhelmed...

[tgamemaster1975]

I use morale alot IMC. I do what a lot of you do, I only rule the dice when I need a nudge one way or the other. As foster noted, taking all the variables into account is tough, but with practice and experience you get better with it all the time. If the newer refs have played under a good one it gives them a leg up on it since they have seen it in action quite a bit already.

[dwayanu]

I wouldn't call morale in Chainmail "insanely complicated" -- at least the rules under that heading; perhaps I've forgotten more "comprehensive" factors scattered through the book.

Depending on type, a unit tests at 1/4, 1/3 or 1/2 casualties. A roll (again varying with type) on 2d6 determines whether the unit breaks then or continues until losses are twice as much (1/2, 2/3 or 100%). Lack of clarity in the text could lead to other interpretations, but none too unwieldy. There are elaborations for pike and cavalry charges.

In D&D, I use a "roll n or less" scheme, so a higher Morale Rating is better, and check twice (at 1/3 and 2/3). I also check whenever in my judgement the troops might balk at carrying out orders.

The dice ease the pressure on my judgement and allow for surprises.

For hirelings, I use a base MR of 7, modified per Vol. 1, p.12 (roll 3d6 for Loyalty, modified by patron's Charisma).

[jrients]

I like the morale rules I first encountered in Moldvay's Basic D&D. Each monster type has a number to be checked against 2d6 at first blood and 50% casualties. Failure indicates retreat. Very simple. I penciled in the Moldvay numbers on the stat lines in my copy of Monsters & Treasures.

What I like about these rules is that a bold party can take on large groups of cowardly monsters, hoping to break morale. If you can route the kobold horde with a single death, then maybe their treasure horde can be gained without a protracted combat.

[dwayanu]

Moldvay's approach varies from mine in detail (i.e., at which points to test), but is basically the same.

Regardless of actual casualties, I reckon a typical band of 1st-level monsters likely to flee after getting blasted (or seeing comrades blasted) with a Fire Ball or Lightning Bolt. One may easily recognize analogous circumstances.

Another concept that can come in handy is that it may take time for troops to respond to new orders (as in the naval boarding rules in Vol. 3). A further elaboration is the occasional misunderstanding of instructions.

"Season to taste," DM!

[foster1941]

dwayanu said:

I wouldn't call morale in Chainmail "insanely complicated" -- at least the rules under that heading; perhaps I've forgotten more "comprehensive" factors scattered through the book.

You're describing the "Instability Due to Excess Casualties" rules on pp. 17-18, which are fairly straightforward. What I had in mind (and, admittedly, calling it "insanely compilicated" was an exaggeration) was the "Post Melee Morale" procedure on pp. 15-16, which is both more complicated (lots of in-game addition, subtraction, and multiplication of numbers that change from round to round so they can't be pre-figured) and more pervasive -- the way I read these rules, this procedure should be followed for each unit after every single round of melee.

[dwayanu]

Ah, yes -- thanks, Foster! I haven't played the game in ages. Heck, we probably tossed (or house-ruled) that section back in the day.

[crimhthanthegreat]

foster1941 said:

I think morale (the notion that everybody won't always do exactly as they're told or fight to the death) is an important concept, and drastically changes the shape of the game -- if the party's fighting a dozen orcs it makes a big differenceif they'll only have to kill 3 or 4 of them (or maybe just the leader) vs. having to kill all 12 of them. The problem is that morale is hard to model in rules -- in order to take into account all of the factors it should, you end up with something way too complex to use in a real-time context (the morale rules in Chainmail are a perfect example: they're very comprehensive and seemingly quite realistic, but they're also insanely complicated). The best solution is probably to "free kriegspiel" it -- the referee applies his judgment to decide if troops' morale holds or breaks at key junctures -- but even that's an imperfect solution since it requires the DM to make a lot of snap judgments and also tends to minimize the various morale-effecting rules effects (charisma, certain humanoids in daylight or when their tribal standard is present, etc.). While a veteran referee can probably handle all this with no problem, a newbie might be overwhelmed...

I "free kriegspiel" it, but then I tend to do most things by the seat of the pants anyway. I think morale is an important concept in the game. I tend to think that most monsters will only stand and fight to the last "man" if there is something truly vital at stake otherwise there are many different options that may be on the table. Of course, IMC both monsters and PCs alike do not normally have attack first ask questions later as the prime option in every encounter. There are ambushes and there are encounters where that is the case, but if that is all that happened this would have went stale a long time ago. I play that monsters like people are very interested in keeping their skin intact and while they may not care about anyone else's skin they most assuredly care about their own. Most not all of my monsters have various loyalties that come into play and those that have the concept of a personal family and/or tribe care about them to varyings degrees.