Origins of morale score

[Stormcrow]

I noticed something interesting today in the D&D FAQ in The Strategic Review:

he can simply throw two dice -- a 2 being very bad morale, a 12 being very good morale. With situational adjustments this score will serve as a guideline for what action will be taken by the party checked.

This is the precursor to the Basic D&D morale score, but it is not the same. Instead of a set morale score against which you throw two dice, it is a score which you generate with two dice, and then use to judge how the combatant will react. You don't randomly determine a creature's reaction; you randomly determine (or arbitrarily set) his morale, and judge his reactions based on this.

[bobjester]

I've had to look this up the first time I ran an 0e game last year. Luckily, someone pointed out the FAQ later on (for future sessions), but at the time, I based morale on the reaction chart on p.12 of Men & Magic, but judged the NPC/monster's morale, with high rolls being favorable to the PCs and low rolls meaning that the NPC/monster would continue to fight.

Taking a mental cue from BX, I automatically set some undead (skeletons & zombies) at "12" and let the humanoid monsters be completely random.

[talysman]

It's pretty much the way I do morale. I don't use a "morale score", although hirelings/henchmen have 3d6 Loyalty scores that determine modifiers to the morale roll. I use the 2d6 roll for basic reactions, but during combat, I simplify it to a 1d6 roll: 5+ means morale breaks and hirelings or monsters start to retreat, adjusted roll of 7+ means they panic. This way, I can use damage rolls as simultaneous morale rolls, without rolling extra dice.

[Deleted]

I use the table on page 17 of Chainmail. It gives some reasonable values for base morale and the number of casualties that will trigger a check.

Then, all I have to do is decide which type of troops the army in question is most like and assign that morale type to them.