Comment on “Mass Unit Battles”

On the subject of dragon breath, and how a character dying to that might feel the situation to be less arbitrary than dying somewhat more ... anonymously ... from the proposed system of mass-combat casualties. Such a feeling would presumably stem from how, in an ordinary (non-mass) combat, the players would control their individual characters with all the usual micromanagement: taking painstaking preparations before the battle itself, arranging the lines of defense just so, cooperating as best they could in the heat of battle... and as such, whatever the success or failure of the party's side in the dragon fight, unless the DM had truly botched things or resorted to bullshit-like fudging the players ought to generally feel like they had earned the outcome themselves.

So, the major test of the gamability of a mass combat system would be whether it gives players an analogous level of agency -- that same ability to earn success or failure -- despite the PCs now being just statistical contributions to a larger fighting force. I have no doubt that it's possible to devise those rules, but it would require delicate and careful work to get there. I think the resulting rules would be successful if and only if they essentially felt like an entirely new mini-game inside D&D, in the way that combat arguably is.

I'm all in favor of adding more and more rules to govern more and more game situations -- but still, I'm pretty gung-ho about this suggestion that Pandred gave, where one would essentially "magnify" the results of a normal PC-vs-enemy individual-level combat into the result of a larger battle. Not only is it elegant, it would also be a good stopgap until the day that the mass combat rules can stand on their own.

What that stopgapness suggests to me is that a good starting point for work on mass-combat rules would be those relating to reconnoitering, choosing routes, deciding on formations and rate of movement, etc. -- and then, designing accompanying rules that translate the PCs' decisions on those areas into inputs which partially/fully determine the precise terrain layout, the potential for surprise, possible weather conditions, etc. that would go into any corresponding small-scale battles to be "magnified."

(cont)