Battlefield Adventures - Andy Collins speaks!

[RodneyThompson]

I'm actually really looking forward to this book. I had a conversation with Christopher Perkins at GenCon this past summer where I pitched a book just like this to him....only to find out that Battlefield Adventures had already been written and edited! D'oh! Still, from what I've heard both from Chris and Andy, this could be useful. I wouldn't count it out just yet.

 

[philreed]

I wouldn't count it out just yet.

Well, I doubt anyone really counts a book "out" until they get a look at it. Just like any other book I'm interested in, I'll wait to make a decision until I get a chance to flip through it and read a section or two.

 

[Arnwyn]

I am curious to see what actually is this book going to give us gamers. Something that we cannot do with core rules? Rules-free discussion about how to fit D&D characters in an army, or without fighting along with the army? What about "building warfare-minded" characters, is he talking about commanders? But he just said that the book doesn't cover army battles, how are you going to play a commander if not commanding?

It's very foggy to me, this book could be anything from total crap to fantastic, depending on what the real content will be. One of my guess is that it will retry covering vehicles rules, but what else?

I agree with this. The length of the book seems a bit long based on such an overly-focused topic. I can't imagine what will be in this book, really.

I'd like to see things such as the affects of attacking supply lines (with non-arbitrary mechanical results/modifiers), for example... but what would these modifiers apply to?

The blurb has me favorably inclined to Battlefield Adventures right now, but it's definitely a "heavy skim before buying" book. The content is seriously in question for me.

I still want to see a good mass combat system for D&D,

Already done. A couple of times. (Too bad for your cruddy distribution system Down Under.)

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Well, I doubt anyone really counts a book "out" until they get a look at it.

Well, I passed on, "A Dozen Things I Gots In My Pocket-- Right Now!" sight unseen.

The cover art looked great, though.

 

[TerraDave]

Well, that answers one question I've had for a while, but hadn't gotten a straight answer to. When I think "mass combat" I think about large, terraformed tables with stands of figures where each figure represents several men. I think about dealing with formations, facing those formations, and that sort of thing.

Skirmishes aren't "massive" enough to sate the wargamer in me, but they're too big to be of interest to the roleplayer.

The system in the Minis handbook is like (the editions I have seen) Warhammer: you can have the massed figures in formations with manuevers, etc, but each mini represents only one person or creature. So I guess with a really big battle with lots of figures you can get to a couple hundred of participants.

One challenge for doing a true mass combat system in D&D is adjudicating magic: how does it scale? Also, the D&D mini's don't really lend themselved to mass battles, with the way they are sold, so that may also explain the limited support for truly "mass" combat.

 

[MerricB]

The system in the Minis handbook is like (the editions I have seen) Warhammer: you can have the massed figures in formations with manuevers, etc, but each mini represents only one person or creature. So I guess with a really big battle with lots of figures you can get to a couple hundred of participants.

One challenge for doing a true mass combat system in D&D is adjudicating magic: how does it scale? Also, the D&D mini's don't really lend themselved to mass battles, with the way they are sold, so that may also explain the limited support for truly "mass" combat.

Really, "proxy" miniatures are necessary for the DDM mass combat system, alas. It's the 1:1 scale that is the most frustrating part, because the actual rules are very good, IMO.

I easily have about 100 Orc miniatures, which would make about 1000 Orcs at 10:1 scale. One of these days I really have to write a conversion for DDM that deals with 10:1...

Cheers!

 

[TerraDave]

Really, "proxy" miniatures are necessary for the DDM mass combat system, alas. It's the 1:1 scale that is the most frustrating part, because the actual rules are very good, IMO.

I easily have about 100 Orc miniatures, which would make about 1000 Orcs at 10:1 scale. One of these days I really have to write a conversion for DDM that deals with 10:1...

Cheers!

Again, there is rescalling magic, and dealing with unique creatures..."just" that. After having attempted something like this for 2nd ed, I look foward to what you come up with!

 

[Mercule]

One challenge for doing a true mass combat system in D&D is adjudicating magic: how does it scale? Also, the D&D mini's don't really lend themselved to mass battles, with the way they are sold, so that may also explain the limited support for truly "mass" combat.

Oh, I'm quite aware of the difficulties of doing true mass combat that is faithful to the D&D tropes. I certainly wouldn't want to have to write it. That doesn't mean that I can't hope to see one.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Having played one game with the MH system, I thought it worked fine. Simple, fast and not too involved while allowing the charcters room to shine.

It's no full-blown war game, but I don't need that.

The problem of course is that I do want a full blown wargame, or at least rules for real battles, not the fiddling skirmishes that both Miniatures Handbook and Warhammer limit you to. I want something that will handle battles from the Thirty Years War....

OMCS2 does allow me to do that, though I tweaked it a tad to make metamagic more desireable. (Widen spell in particular shoud be devestating when used with a properly placed Fireball...)

Then again I also like cannon...

The Auld Grump

 

[Orryn Emrys]

I actually encountered the kind of scenario this book seems to be suggesting in one of my campaigns just a couple of years ago. War was spreading across the nations, and I knew that I wanted the PCs involved... but I kept hesitating at the point of implementation, uncertain how to proceed. In the end, I managed to create a game session in which the characters were on site at the most important battle of the campaign, a couple of them even led units themselves, but a bigger battle was brewing behind the scenes, pitching the high-level PCs against the most important NPCs of the opposing force. I kept a fluid commentary of certain actions in the battle going for the PCs who were in a position to see it, then handled individual encounters with the NPCs as necessary. The PCs even took down a few dragons the enemy forces put in the air, which seriously affected the general trend of the battle.

All in all, it was one of my most successful game sessions ever, without the players ever stopping to consider the mechanics involved. They ate it up. Still... it would have been nice to have this kind of resource available at the time....