Chainmail for OD&D - Playtesting and Comments from my Player

[davidbrodeur]

Greetings everyone,

Context: I have been using Chainmail for about a year now to resolve all NPC battles (monsters vs hirelings, armies vs armies, etc.) with simplified rules. I have also done playtesting on the side with whole battles as per a "wargame" and so on. Because of this, I have fallen in love with Chainmail (I was already a fan of wargames like Warhammer). I started to do heavy research, rewrote my own set of rules for OD&D /w Chainmail (simplified), etc. I proposed to my player to test it. This game was perfect as they were mostly just figthing rabbles and they are level 4-6. 

The problem is that it really didn't go as I thought it would. I wanted to share here to get some more feedback from experienced players:

• Ease of use: I modified the troop system to be easy to use and explain so that I can keep the "in 5 minutes you have a character and know about where to go and what to do" that I like so much about OD&D. So my Chainmail melee is basically this: if you are equal type, you roll 5+ for a hit; if you are heavier type, 4+; if you are lighter type, 6+. Then, if you are cavalry, you hit at 2/1 and if you are attacking cavalry (while not mounted yourself), 1/2. In my head, this was clear and simple. But coming from d20, it created all sorts of confusion. Is Chainmail so difficult? I'm not saying this against my players. Like I told them, this is so simple that the problem is probably me and my communication skills (especially since they were 6 to not understand very well). 
• "Control": One of my very good and motivated player said that he felt he had "less control" over the fights. In the AS, you roll one dice to hit and one dice to damage. This is clear, it's separated, and it's always one dice of each. When you impact those dice with modifiers (such as magic sword), it's easier to calculate the direct effect (5%) and so on. In Chainmail, he felt that it was just "roll a bunch of dice and we'll figure it out after". I don't know what to do about this since it's true that the impact of modifiers is completely different and sometimes there is a lot of dice to throw when you control your own men and so on. 
• Confusion over power level: A bit in link with both previous points, some even expressed the feeling that they felt they were less strong... in absolutely all aspect they are stronger. If you shoot once with a bow and can make, at best, 1d6 HP, there is no way you can consider yourself weaker than if you can one shot kill one or more figure. Again, I feel like sometimes has been badly communicated on my part. 
• "What's the point": I felt also that the general consideration was "why?". To me it's clear: it gives a more heroic feeling to combat, it helps when you reach level 5-6 and you have bunch of hirelings, it goes SO MUCH FASTER, etc. But I felt this was lost on them, and again I feel the problem might be me. 
• My players have an attachment for the d20, which is understandable. They like that it's "D&D". I can understand that. 

I don't have an actual question. I'm mostly looking for people that uses Chainmail for their combat resolution to tell me how they implement it, how they approached it and made their player use it, etc. I know I might have sounded like false humility and that I really think my players are not a very nice person and they don't get it but really that's not the case. I genuinely think that what I thought I presented was simple and no one got it, meaning the problem is with me, not them. 1-2 guys maybe it's them, but 6 experienced D&D and wargaming players? Most likely me. Yet I don't see how I can make it any easier. 

I'm not a huge fan of the AS since I started using Chainmail. I'm not speaking specifically about OD&D: all edition of the d20 AS feels bland. It's slower, there isn't very much to do with it, etc. I don't feel it offers more tactical aspect. I know some people add charts for weapon vs armor (AD&D) and so on, but this only brings even more the game into a slow grind. It's fine using AS/MtM for duels and very small encounter, but I feel it completely breaks down when you have more combatants. I've never played any D&D edition (except OD&D with or without Chainmail) where huge combat doesn't end into a slugfest. Later editions are even worse since combat sometimes take the whole session. I also know some people are very good at improvising and making sure every hit counts and is a story in itself: but we need to recognize our weakness and strength, and I know that this is not one my strength. I know my players love to explore my worlds and stuff (open table sandbox campaign has been going for years so that's how I interpret it), but I know I'm not super good at play-acting and description. Therefore just telling me I should learn to "present combat better" or to "include more tactical options on the fly" seems a bit out of my reach to "spice it up". 

TDLR: I didn't want this to become a rant or anything. I'm sorry if it comes like that. The bottom line is that my players doesn't seem to understand/appreciate Chainmail for resolving combat, and I'm tired of the AS d20. I'd like to have some suggestions and comments as to how I could break out of that impasse. 

Thank you. 

[hamurai]

Before I go into details I'd like to ask, do your players still use OD&D to create characters, or how does it work? If so, how do troop types work with the classes; how do you know which troop your character is? Is it based on AC, weapons, class, attributes?

1.) The rules for attacks seem clear enough. "Ease of use", as you put it, shouldn't have been a problem.

2.) When using a d6 pool, modifiers are very limited for target numbers and always about 3 times higher than on the d20 (target number +1 on a d6 is roughly a +17% increase vs the d20's 5%) which will confront you with the issue of when to apply a modifier and "recognize a difference" (in the game mechanics), like good positioning that'd offer a small attack bonus - maybe, I'm not sure how you had played with the d20 and how many modifiers you used.

Modifying the dice pool by adding or subtracting dice makes it nearly impossible for many players to calculate or guess the increase or decrease of their chances.

The comment that they "roll a bunch of dice and figure it out later" could be exactly that - they have no idea what their chances are - and,maybe, how the dice pool is assembled and how each die is used for effects.

3.) Concerning the "feeling less powerful" - maybe it's not the damage they can deal, but the damage their characters can take? I guess they can take 1 hit per HD? There's no room for luck in the damage roll against them: 1 HD means they can take 1 hit, but with HP they could maybe take 2 hits for 2 damage each and still stand.

4.) Well, you could roll a d20 dice pool, too. You could still use every modifier your players are used to as even the small +1's are still an option. Hitting a lower troop type might require a 12+ (about the same chance as 4+ on d6), for example.


That said, this was your first game and your players tried new rules which they (as I read it) didn't really care about implementing in the first place. It's normal that they'd be slower to grasp the rules in these circumstances. Maybe have them play a smaller melee, only their characters against some monsters. Less dice rolling, and maybe they can see better how each roll affects the game.

[Finarvyn]

I actually had a somewhat similar experience back in the 1970's. My group had played Chainmail before we discovered OD&D, and so Chainmail had been our default for large battles. If an adventure led to a large battle, we would pause and set up stuff in the sand table (or on a friend's pool table) and conduct the battle using Chainmail rules, then go back to OD&D as the adventure continued.

It worked well for us, all-in-all, but I would agree that it does have a different feel to it and I can see why the players might not appreciate switching from one rules set and back because something gets lost in the translation. I think it comes down to the fact that in OD&D mode characters have their six attributes and specific Armor Class and the like. When we moved to Chainmail characters felt a lot more generic, even if their power level increased. (Stat bonuses pretty much go away, AC gets simplified into one of three types, HP become generic HD, and so on.) I'm not sure that there is a "fix" for this, as Chainmail was never really designed to handle the complexity of unique individual characters.

My current group mostly plays 5E and we have encountered quite a few battles which have become epic slog-fests, but my group seems to enjoy keeping track of individual characters and leave me to the task of tracking all of the monster and NPC details. I have some suggestions on how I made this process easier for me, but it's far enough away from the purpose of this thread that I won't spend time on it unless asked. Bottom line is that when you run into large-scale battles it's helpful to have a shortcut way to get through it faster, and Chainmail should be an easy substitute for an OD&D campaign.

Not sure if this helps or not, but it's my initial thoughts on the matter.

[davidbrodeur]

First of all, thank you for answering!

hamurai
0) Yes character creation is OD&D. I did include some class and stuff from AD&D (because I have much love for the Paladin since it's the first class I played in AD&D2nd) but all in all the big "framework" is OD&D in about everything (dungeon rules, monsters, exploration, hexcrawl, chargen, XP requirements, race-as-class, etc.). With regards to troop types with class, I go with an approximation: fighter-types are in the "hero" track and therefore it depends on their HD and armour; magic-users are light and at high level, wizard (nobody is there yet). I made a chart where each AC = this or that type. Weapons only has a difference in MtM or sometimes behind the scene I'll give a bonus (for example, using a blunt against skeleton).
1) Yes. Of course there are many more rules behind the scene (weather, terrain, morale, etc.) but that's not for the players to play around anyway so they don't have (nor have been explained) those.
2) I feel this is a critic at Chainmail (or any wargaming itself) that uses d6. There isn't much to do. Magic weapons add d6 when you attack, and that's the extent of it. I guess I could rewrite everything as d10 to add granularity and make it transparent (+1 being +10%, easier to understand).
3) Although you are right with the damage they can take, they actually took much less damage than normal. For example, they encountered a random pack of undead (17 skeletons and 2 wight). Normally, even for a group of level 4-6, this would have been a fair fight: 17 skeletons, even vs plate armour, has about 10% to hit each. So this would have connected quite a few time. And since they would have died much slower, they could have hit multiple times prior to all being killed. Whereas what happened is that they all charged on horse, shot the wight from the back and everything was done in pretty much one turn (except one skeleton). I do think however that for level 1-2, this is 100% true: more difficult to survive (which is why Arneson in the first place included HP if I remember correctly). I feel at higher level you are just more resistant (especially when you include magic items and potions).
4) Yes, this is a possibility: I'll go back to d20 but take the AD&D multiple attack pattern for fighter-types.

@finarvyn
Your point about the "generic" aspect is very true. I feel that's one of their critic that you just formulated in clear words. From your comment and the previous one, my initial suggestion would be that I'll keep Chainmail for huge and generic battles only. For skirmish-types, I'll keep AS with multiple attack.

I also play 5th and I have my own shortcuts to keep it fast (using average damage and average hits, controlling swarms of monsters as one big creature with multi-attack, etc.). But TBH what I'd be really interested, if you don't mind, is more related to your (previous?) use of Chainmail: did you keep using it without problem until you switched to another system, or did your stopped using it at some point? Did you use AS for everything else and only the troop type for huge battles, or did you used the MtM and Fantasy matrix?

Thanks!

[captainjapan]

You said you were giving them a simplified version of Chainmail to play. I wonder if and how you are handling some other features like morale or terrain. All of the control that players exercise in mass combat comes down to movement and position since the troop types are already set as to their combat capability. This is a different focus entirely from ability/skill/weapon optimization that happens in D&D. Were you aware, immediately when you introduced them to the session, that the players were disappointed that the details of their characters don't apply in mass combat. The best analogy to D&D character generation that I could come up with for wargaming is army selection, I guess. Did players hire their own men, with their character's gold,  to fight said battle? Chainmail uses points values for picking armies unless players insist on using their own "special" figures. Who, among you, brought figures?

Perhaps, the players' characters own magic weapons which can add extra hit dice in a melee. Another thing to consider is that all of your players are Heroes (level 4 and above). I don't know if you're also using the Fantasy Combat Table. If not, players should be feeling considerably more powerful against only goblin and orc brigades. A Hero gets to fight until all of the troops under his command are killed and the enemy manages to score 4 simultaneous hits against him. Remind your players of this.

Good luck and Happy gaming.

[davidbrodeur]

captainjapan

Thanks for the reply. 

You said you were giving them a simplified version of Chainmail to play. I wonder if and how you are handling some other features like morale or terrain.

It was simplified for them (i.e. only things pertaining to hit resolution, and even there, I tried to "streamline" it into a "formulae" as shown in my post). But morale and terrain was considered on case by case basis for me to tell them. In this case, it mostly didn't apply (terrain was flat, enemies were undead without morale).

All of the control that players exercise in mass combat comes down to movement and position since the troop types are already set as to their combat capability. This is a different focus entirely from ability/skill/weapon optimization that happens in D&D. Were you aware, immediately when you introduced them to the session, that the players were disappointed that the details of their characters don't apply in mass combat.

This is actually a very very very good point. I might not have put enough emphasis on this and I think that this is were their complaint comes from: they probably felt that they were being "stripped" of their customization whereas in reality the focus was just switched. It's up to me to explain them that positioning, formations, tactics, troop choice, etc. is now more important in mass combat. Thanks for clarifying this in my mind! I had told them that "more" was available to them in terms of receiving charges, flanking, positionning, etc., but I feel I might have downplayed that aspect and instead focused more on "how to resolve hits" which is secondary.

Did players hire their own men, with their character's gold, to fight said battle? Chainmail uses points values for picking armies unless players insist on using their own "special" figures. Who, among you, brought figures?

1) They hired them as per OD&D prices and so on. I'm not using Chainmail point systems.
2) We didn't bring figures since it was online play (I live in a lockdown area). If we had done it in real life, I would have included figures since we are used to playing wargames anyway.

Perhaps, the players' characters own magic weapons which can add extra hit dice in a melee.

Yes I already was using all the rules from the book in one form or the other. The complaint that was had was that it only added more dice, adding to the "confusing" aspect of just "throw a bunch of dice, figure it out later".

Another thing to consider is that all of your players are Heroes (level 4 and above). I don't know if you're also using the Fantasy Combat Table. If not, players should be feeling considerably more powerful against only goblin and orc brigades. A Hero gets to fight until all of the troops under his command are killed and the enemy manages to score 4 simultaneous hits against him. Remind your players of this.

Yes. Like I said I'm pretty sure the complaint about feeling less strong is totally unwarranted and on that point I'm "putting" the blame on my players since both in actual practice and in terms of "odds", it was clear they were stronger under that system.

Good luck and Happy gaming.

Thank you very much!

[EdOWar]

I've also given some thought to using a modified version of Chainmail (or Delta's Book of War) to resolve large scale D&D skirmishes and ran into many of the same issues you mention. One idea I had on magic items, instead of emphasizing traditional D&D magic weapons and armor granting +1 here or +2 there, which lack granularity and flavor in a mass combat system, try giving the magic items special abilities which would matter in a large scale combat. For example, a suit of magic platemail doesn't provide more protection, but maybe it lets you move as if only wearing leather armor. That's a huge benefit. Or it lets you fly once a day, or heals wounds, or any number of other special abilities. Same with magic weapons. This way magic items can feel more impactful in a large battle, instead of just being "Oh, a sword that lets me roll one more dice in mass combat."

Also, if you haven't already, you may want to look at Original Edition Delta Book of War by Daniel Collins. It's sort of a retro-clone of Chainmail. It tackles some of the issues you've mentioned and may give you ideas on how to make your combat system more engaging for your players.

[davidbrodeur]

EdOWar

Thanks for the reply!

Your idea about magical weapon is very good. The only "issue" is that I would have needed to know in advance I was going to use this so that the magic items are tailored to it. However, it's a very good point for my next campaign.

Also yes I did read Delta's book. It's great and well done, I have nothing against it. My own version has a lot in common with it (not because I copied it, but because we both used the same sources).

[thegreyelf]

Have you looked at The Compleat Chainmail Combat System, or, Using Chainmail to Resolve OD&D Combats?

It's a booklet that arose many years ago out of my own "Forbidden Lore" booklet on using Chainmail in OD&D. Mine is much simpler than the Compleat one, but the latter was put together with extensive scholarship after I did mine, using work from about 6 other folks here, and it really forms a full rules system for using Chainmail in OD&D. Looking at both of those books may give you some insight into the inner workings of how Chainmail and OD&D slot together. I've used it for a decade or more in my home games and it works smoothly and well.

Both can be found at www.grey-elf.com/ in the "Other OD&D Resources" section.

[davidbrodeur]

thegreyelf Yes I looked at them! Your work is great and has been super helpful.

In the end I talked with my player and settled on the following:
- No Fantasy Combat
- MtM and FC will be with ACS (with some minor add-on like the parry and bonus to hit for certain weapon against certain armors)
- Troop Type for outdoor/big battles

[retrorob]

davidbrodeur

Like you I got tired of ACS and d20. I highly recommend switching to Fantasy Combat Table, you can also borrow target numbers from Megarry's Dungeon! (almost identical as in Chainmail). Here is my newest variant for combat resolution: PC act first, unless surprised. Roll 2d6 target number (I use Dungeon! values here) & apply modifiers (magic sword etc.); if you hit, the monster is defeated. Otherwise it is the monster who won the round and the character gets damage. Damage can be reduce by magic armor. So basically melee is resolved by one roll only. Up to three characters can attack monster at a time.

Mass combat: I just use CM but simplify it a lot (dropped optional rules, post-melee morale and many others).

[ahabicher]

Dec 5, 2020 5:26:56 GMT -6 Finarvyn said:

(...)

My current group mostly plays 5E and we have encountered quite a few battles which have become epic slog-fests, but my group seems to enjoy keeping track of individual characters and leave me to the task of tracking all of the monster and NPC details. I have some suggestions on how I made this process easier for me, but it's far enough away from the purpose of this thread that I won't spend time on it unless asked. Bottom line is that when you run into large-scale battles it's helpful to have a shortcut way to get through it faster, and Chainmail should be an easy substitute for an OD&D campaign.

Question: How do you handle mass combat with this group?
I just witnessed a 5e group fall apart over mass combat frustration, so I am curious how you are doing it.

[hamurai]

Mar 13, 2021 14:39:26 GMT -6 ahabicher said:

I just witnessed a 5e group fall apart over mass combat frustration, so I am curious how you are doing it.

What was the issue with mass combat for the group?

The Dungeon Master's Guide has a small entry on "Handling Mobs" (p. 250), in which you first calculate the roll needed to hit the PCs for the mob creatures and gives you a table to look up how many attackers of the mob would be needed to hit once, on average. So, when a PC has an AC of 16 and the attacker has a +5 attack bonus, the roll would have to be 11+, and looking at the table you see that you'd need 2 attackers at that character to hit once and do damage.
Combine that with fixed damage numbers and you can quickly tell how many hits and how much damage a character takes.

This speeds up play a lot because you take out all the mob enemies' attack and damage rolls. Special enemies will of course still be played as normal, but your "standard" mob of 20 goblins will be easier to handle for the DM. Use fixed HP for the goblins and it's faster again. If they're accompanied by a shaman, for example, he's still played out like any regular enemy.

Once the enemies have been reduced, you can switch back to normal combat at any time.

Edit: page number added

[ahabicher]

Mar 14, 2021 1:07:39 GMT -6 hamurai said:

Mar 13, 2021 14:39:26 GMT -6 ahabicher said:

I just witnessed a 5e group fall apart over mass combat frustration, so I am curious how you are doing it.

What was the issue with mass combat for the group?

In that particular case there was a battle of a bit more than 1000 warriors against 500 on the players' side, and it became a drawn-out affair in which several players felt uneasy - some because their actions did not sway the outcome in a visible manner, others because they took a lot of damage from multiple foes at once, others felt that is was just way too long. In the end, the game was disbanded and the DM blamed his own lack of elegant handling of mass combat.
That made me interested in how successful battles are handled.
Personally, I often skim over much of it and focus on the part of the players while the battle rages anonymously around them, but that has its drawbacks.

[hamurai]

OK, well, that's army scale. We didn't have this come up in any of our 5E games, but I've handled it in the past (in OD&D and AD&D, for example).

Now it depends on whether the PCs are generals or officers and in command of a unit or several, or if they're just soldiers in the army.

If they're soldiers, I'd stick to the Handling Mob rules from the DMG and decide the fate of the rest of the battle by a throw of a few dice, if it's not decided by the story yet.

If the players are commanders, I'd have them make skill rolls on appropriate skills like History, Insight, Perception - stuff like that which might influence tactical decisions (like knowing about battles in the past, judging your enemy's intentions, perceiving ambush or flanking attempts). I'd probably give players with an appropriate background (soldier, noble, mercenary..) Advantage for the roll. (In OD&D and AD&D I had the players roll d20 and add their INT or WIS or CHA stat, depending on what they wanted to do.)
The enemy commander(s) do the same and whoever rolls best gets a token. This is the advantage they gained due to one of these decisions.

Over the course of the battle, several such rolls are made and tokens gained by either the PCs or the enemy and each side can spend these tokens in several ways, or keep them. In my games, the uses were:
* destroy specialist combatants - the PCs used that to destroy siege engines, commanders (-> enemy morale check), giants (in one game they battled giants in alliance with orcs), stuff like that. Why? Because siege engines destroy defenses and there was a chance the players would encounter one of the giants while fighting alongside their troops, which they really didn't want to.
* use a specialist's ability to make an impact on the battle (like damaging the town walls, killing off big numbers of enemies...)
* heal an ally (some clerics were part of the fighting forces and by chance (=spending a token) they might encounter one when they needed healing)
(I think there was more, but I don't remember)

Each earned token also meant the enemy side losing more standard troops than the own side. I remember last time I played (some 300 soldiers on each side, plus specialists), I rolled 1d4 x 10 extra losses for the loser of the "tactics roll-off", while I crossed off 5 standard troops each round of battle (ticking off boxes of 5 soldiers each). I rolled the extra losses in secret, but sometimes gave a hint about the outcome, like cries of fear or relief from some units. Sometimes a player unit would be affected by extra losses, then they had to make check to keep up morale (you can use Persuasion in 5E, for example), if unsuccessful the enemy earned a token.

I did hand-waive stuff often, like when specialists were defeated by other means than using a token. The PCs were quite successful with their rolls and when they killed their face-to-face enemies really quickly by some impressive luck or tactics, I gave them another token.

All in all, the battle was long but not uninteresting for the players. I told them the mechanics I used for extra losses and thus they knew that every roll made an impact on the outcome. I also told them that inventive player decisions and good tactics (like using terrain and such) would earn them extra tokens. We only had a hand-drawn map of the battlefield, but it sufficed.

We've also played a game where we used Domains At War (Adventurer Conqueror King System) for bigger battles, but that's when we knew most of us liked tabletop games. We just played a tabletop game in between our RP sessions and decided the outcome of the battle.

[derv]

I'm a fan of Chainmail and I'm all about people learning to play the game. But, perhaps I can make a suggestion that may help avoid frustrations between GM's and players not familiar with Chainmail- choose a system your players know instead of Chainmail to resolve mass combat.

The reality is that you can just as easily use the alternative combat system in D&D to resolve mass combat as you can for individual combat. It's just a matter of abstracting the scale. Chainmail uses a 1:20 ratio. This means every figure is meant to represent 20 men on the battlefield. But there is nothing stopping a person from using a 1:50, 1:100, or even 1:1000 ratio. It's all a matter of scale.

This same principle can be applied to the ACS to accelerate resolutions. Treat a body of men as a single figure. Assign one or more units to each player to command. Each one of these groups will be treated as a normal soldier with d6 hp's, armor class based on armor type, attack as a 1st level fighter, and do d6 damage with a successful hit. A GM might want to give initiative to troops with longer weapons. Otherwise roll a d6 for initiative.

As GM, take the time to embellish the narrative of what is taking place on the battlefield, just as you would with a melee between individual combatants. And don't forget to give units a morale rating and check morale when it falls below 50% hp's.

You can also allow special melee to take place between two or more commanders while the larger ruckus is taking place all around them. Should a commander be killed their entire army should check morale (possibly with a penalty to the roll). Should they fail, they will rout in disorder.

Just some thoughts. Make it easy on yourself and your players.