Including the results of ALL games in your campaign

[chicagowiz]

I wasn't sure where to put this, so I'll stick it here and see if Finarvyn wants to move it.

I mused a bit on my blog about including the results of my various Chainmail and HOTT battles into my campaign as game-changers, or ways to show effects of player decisions, or simply to rearrange the playing pieces in a more dynamic world.

I was curious how many folks here did that on a regular basis, ala Tony Bath's Hyborean campaign? That you might stage battles and "save the results" to use in your campaign?

I'm thinking about putting a system in place for the various kingdoms, baronies, monster armies and dark forces will "fight it out" alongside the players as the campaign moves on. What has your experience been?

[robertsconley]

Jul 14, 2015 9:34:11 GMT -6 chicagowiz said:

I wasn't sure where to put this, so I'll stick it here and see if Finarvyn wants to move it.

I mused a bit on my blog about including the results of my various Chainmail and HOTT battles into my campaign as game-changers, or ways to show effects of player decisions, or simply to rearrange the playing pieces in a more dynamic world.

I was curious how many folks here did that on a regular basis, ala Tony Bath's Hyborean campaign? That you might stage battles and "save the results" to use in your campaign?

Yes not on a regular basis as war and mass battles are not always happening.

Jul 14, 2015 9:34:11 GMT -6 chicagowiz said:

I'm thinking about putting a system in place for the various kingdoms, baronies, monster armies and dark forces will "fight it out" alongside the players as the campaign moves on. What has your experience been?

I used either GURPS Mass Combat when I was running GURPS. Since Swords & Wizardry entered the rotation of systems around 2009 I used for campaigning in the Majestic Wilderlands I used 1st edition Battlesystem. If it came up for the D&D 5th edition campaign I am running in the Majestic Wilderlands I would still use 1st edition Battlesystem.

Overall it works rather nicely although if you try to keep it mostly realistic is not very dramatic.

For the operational and strategic scale, I use a cobbled together system based on real world data. Logistics is about how many man-days of stuff get where. Most of my data focuses on how many troops can a region raise and at various levels. The important point is that a full mobilization would cause famine if it lasted for more than three months. The typical levy has a portion of the full mobilization available each season. Less in the winter and more during the summer campaign months.

Tracking everything involves just marking stuff on a map. When the battle result is debatable I will game it out using Battlesystem. Understand that medieval warfare is mostly about either a siege or a glorified raid to pillage. "Battles" are few and far between. In the wars I gamed out to date the result has been a series of sieges with a debatable land of burned villages and fields created between the two sides.

This link will bring every post I made on using Battlessytem

batintheattic.blogspot.com/search/label/Battle%20Machine

Note that at it heart 1st Edition Battlesystem abstract the probability of dozens of D&D characters/monsters hitting and damaging something at a particular chance. ANY edition of D&D can be used with 1st edition Battlesystem. The only trick is to figure the formula to use Ascending AC for some editions. For descending AC all you need is THACO and the AC as is.

I blog about it here

batintheattic.blogspot.com/2013/08/adapting-1st-edition-battlesystem-to.html

The original formula is
2d6+ THACO-AC + modifiers.

With Ascending AC you use

2d6+Ascending AC-To Hit Bonus+modifiers.

If you are wondering why the use of 2d6 by BattleSystem it is because their chart uses a form of math called BiNominal Distribution. A Binominal Distribution will show the odd of say 25 guys out of 100 hitting when they need to roll a 15 or better. The resulting probabilities form a bell curve. The TSR Guys used that math to produce Battlesystem chart which is why they use 2d6 to figure how much damage X amount of guys will do.

Let me know if you have any other questions.

[chicagowiz]

Jul 16, 2015 13:02:12 GMT -6 robertsconley said:

For the operational and strategic scale, I use a cobbled together system based on real world data. Logistics is about how many man-days of stuff get where. Most of my data focuses on how many troops can a region raise and at various levels. The important point is that a full mobilization would cause famine if it lasted for more than three months. The typical levy has a portion of the full mobilization available each season. Less in the winter and more during the summer campaign months.

Tracking everything involves just marking stuff on a map. When the battle result is debatable I will game it out using Battlesystem. Understand that medieval warfare is mostly about either a siege or a glorified raid to pillage. "Battles" are few and far between. In the wars I gamed out to date the result has been a series of sieges with a debatable land of burned villages and fields created between the two sides.

This is the kind of stuff I'm talking about - to where you can "bring in" other elements, other games to affect your campaign. I'm probably going for more fun/dramatic effect than realistic "burnt villages" effect, but I recognize consistent elements between what you're describing and what I've read in both Tony Bath's book and the Solo Wargaming guide by Sylvester. Although a post-apoc fantasy setting provides different challenges than your typical medieval example, I'm having fun with it.

[Punkrabbitt]

I ran a Dark Sun campaign in the early 90s, wherein my players decided to raise an army. We used Hordes of the Things to play out the battles, with the game results being the net effect on the campaign. They managed to defeat Gulg, drive the Sorceror-Queen (Lalalipuy or some such?) into hiding, and use the city's resources to build their army even stronger to go after their real target, Nibenay. In the end, they were not powerful enough to defeat Nibenay's army, but they were not wholly undone themselves.

[Allandaros]

I think Chris's Hill Cantons campaign follows this multi-game practice - IIRC when he's run minis skirmishes with his local friends, that winds up impacting the campaign world for us players on G+.