RE: (TFT) Random thoughts on rpg combat systems.

["rsmith" <rsmith@lightspeed.ca>]

Hi Cas, Everyone.

Cas wrote about moral being shaky at 10% losses:
>True, this is more a GM's interpretation
>(well, 90% of GMs really, including
>me most of the time), one could always
>make stricter morale rules.

	I suspect a lot of time was spent in real
battles with people gasping for breath, sitting
down for a rest, etc.  Taking turns being on
the "thin red line of heroes..."  Rallying troops
who would rather be elsewhere.  It all adds up.
But then I think about that first 15 seconds
when the two lines hit.

	As for the "10% of a unit killed or
seriously wounded the unit is near breaking..."
statement, that is based on current casualty
rates.  I am assuming that it is as tough losing
friends in a fantasy world as in our real one.

	There are LOTS of examples where military
units took much higher casualties and still
fought very well, but for most units, they start
figuring they've put in their day's wages at
that point.  (Being in a situation where there
is no easy way to withdraw helps.)

	***

	I remember a story where the US army had
this expensive equipment to simulate casualties
(laser tag basically I think).  And they had a
big fight with two brigades and at the end of
it the officers were looking over the computer
reports and boasting about how much they could
learn.

	Anyway the commanding officer goes over to
this general who had been there as an observer
and asks him if he would like to study the
summaries and reports.

	The general says, "How many men on the
blue side ran away?"

	"Uh, nobody."

	"How many men on the red side ran away?"

	"None."

	The general said, "You can't learn anything
about how men fight from this."

	***

	How many people used the moral rules in
Treasure of the Silver Dragon?  I did.  It sure
felt strange not having the NPC's fight until
they all were dead.


	I stand by what I said.  If you have a
company of 50 men and 5 men are down, maybe
dead, your company is HURTING.  When you have
10 - 12 men down, your employers won't complain
when you withdraw at a run.  If you have 25 men
down your company is destroyed.

	Typically with military casualties for each
man killed you have 2 to 3 men seriously wounded.
(This has remained true across a very wide range
of technology levels.   In olden days, many of
those wounded would later die, where as now we
save them.

	In a world with magical healing, I could
see people being a bit braver.  I don't know if
the better healing that we have now has
translated into modern units being able to take
higher casualties before they rout.  Has anyone
seen a study on this?


	Now lots of people have said that melee
combat with swords, etc. is short!  It shouldn't
take more than 10 - 15 seconds to wipe out some
one.  I don't dispute this.  I just wonder what
people were doing all day.

	Anyway, any war game that is suppose to
mesh with TFT small unit fighting has to deal
with this difference in time scales.


	Rick


-----Original Message-----
From: tft-owner@brainiac.com [mailto:tft-owner@brainiac.com]On Behalf Of
Cas and Lisa (also Silvia, Max & Viveka) Liber
Sent: Friday, May 31, 2002 1:34 PM
To: tft@brainiac.com
Subject: Re: (TFT) Random thoughts on rpg combat systems.


Rick, what an eloquent post, I dips me lid !
I'm glad someone else wrote alot of what I feel.

-2 things though,

> The major realism thing that bugs me about
> TFT is the length of combats.  Consider, when an
> army has taken 10% casualties, (that is seriously
> wounded or killed) their moral is typically so
> shaky that they may break at any time.

True, this is more a GM's interpretation (well, 90% of GMs really, including
me most of the time), one could always make stricter morale rules.

Also, in 'real-life' most combats were humans vs humans or animals, undead
never existed in the real world (as far as we know.......) or trolls, I
figure the morale of something that knows it will regenerate would have to
be high.


  Ancient
> battles lasted all day sometimes.

- Ok then.........if you reduced everyones adjDX by 3 or 4 (remember, peons
not heroes) and multiplied them by 50 or so ( a few hudred people on each
side), and had rules for fatigue and had no magic (good for zapping people),
it would take ALOT longer, but as you say, would it be fun?


> I have been trained as a programmer, and
> one good design rule of thumb is make your
> programs data intensive rather than code intensive.
> This means that put as much complexity into the
> data, while keeping the basic rules simple

WOO HOOO (said in Homer Simpson accent), more monsters  and spells!


Cas
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