Re: (TFT) Wargame 6 --> Those darn PC's

["Ty Beard" <tybeard@sbcglobal.net>]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Rick Smith" <rsmith@lightspeed.ca>
To: <tft@brainiac.com>

Hi Rick. I'm kinda stepping into the middle of this and haven't had a chance 
to get up to speed, but you may want to look at the old Chivalry and Sorcery 
"pencil and paper" mass combat system. I believe that it was published in 
the C&S Sourcebook 1 (1983 printing).

C&S came with a fairly decent miniature wargame to handle large battles. It 
was very similar to the WRG Ancients rules of the time, but had the 
appropriate fantasy elements added, and allowed for characters to appear on 
the battlefield. The problem was that it was a typical first generation 
miniature wargame -- very time consuming and quite a hassle to setup. 
Particularly where it was only part of a roleplaying campaign.

So the designers came up with the idea of creating a way to resolve mass 
combat with dice, paper and pen in about 5 minutes. Now, the outcome of a 
major battle could be resolved without disrupting the RPG or incurring huge 
costs to setup. Basically, each type of troop was given a combat point 
value. Morale, armor, weapons, etc., all modified this number. Once the 
army's total was obtained, a simple series of die rolls determined who won 
and the casualties incurred. In addition, there was a system for determining 
the chance that characters would be grievously wounded or killed, increased 
experience points, etc. If I recall correctly, the characters could opt to 
increase the danger and therefore increase the chance of getting lots of 
experience. The reverse was probably true as well. The potential ep rewards 
were very large, as these were major events in the character's life.

THe system was also scalable. For instance, I ran a large battle where the 
PC's small part of the fight was played out with the RPG rules, but the rest 
of the battle was determined by this system. It also made a nifty module for 
campaign wargames -- we would only fight the major battles each turn rather 
than every single fight. And it included comprehensive rules for 
logistics -- feeding and paying the army, etc. Very helpful for a GM wanting 
to run a campaign where the PCs rules large fiefs.

The system would require some adaptation for TFT, but it would make a great 
starting point.

Hope that helps.

--Ty 
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