D&D and war

[S'mon]

Our troops require a huge amount of support to exist and not mutiny, let alone be effective...

That's true. Americans are highly individualistic which can mitigate against combat effectiveness - though US soldiers are very ferocious in battle they are far more likely to refuse orders likely to get them killed than British soldiers would be. The US army has learned to work with this though and make it usually more a strength than a weakness. Individualism is often a mark of warlike cultures and can make them harder to lead into battle, I think many commanders would rather have a Division of docile Chinese soldiery than a Division of individualist Americans. Bad commanders, especially.

 

[glass]

I suspect this is a mistake because the SRD says its only weapon base damage. Since the revised 3.5 SRD came after the books they fixed a lot of mistakes in those books.

If it is a mistake, then it is quite a big one, since there is a sidebar in the PHB* explaining why it is this way.

*At least, there was in 3.0. Not sure if it is still there in 3.5, but I'm pretty sure the rules haven't changed.


glass.

 

[VirgilCaine]

And most European cultures are still more warlike than most of the rest of the world, though that may be changing. I remember an Argentinian being interviewed after the UK-Argentine Falklands War saying "How could we expect to win against these people? It was crazy..." - and Argentines don't exactly have a reputation as craven or pacifists.

... especially when the talk turned to the best kind of ammunition for home defense - not FMJ as it will kill the neighbours, fragmentation rounds are better...

I wonder what they saw in the British that made this impression on them?


Haven't they heard, real homes are made of brick, LOL?

 

[S'mon]

I wonder what they saw in the British that made this impression on them?

Haven't they heard, real homes are made of brick, LOL?

British homes are made of brick, but Texan ones aren't. Anyway I think a FMJ Glock 40mm round might go through a single-brick wall.

 

[Hussar]

That's a population 20 million catchment area - a large kingdom. IMC the planetary superpower the Overkingdom has population 16 million. IRL medieval France ca 25 million, Persian Empire ca 50 million. Basing it purely off city populations is stupid IMO.

I'm going to disagree here. Basing elements off of urban populations is the best answer. Considering that a population that is spread out, might total quite a lot of people, but, since they are not concentrated in one area, there is no support for high level characters. Remember that those demographic figures are also used for calculating purchasing availability.

In other words, you don't see epic level characters living in villages. Why would you? There is absolutely nothing in that village that the character could possibly want. Sure, Persia may have had a total population of 50 million, but, the largest of the city states was less than a couple of hundred thousand. Far less actually. None would even count as a metropolis by DnD standards. Metropolis cities are required for the truly high level characters to have access to the things they might want. It is less important how many people live in a kingdom than how concentrated that population is.

 

[TerraDave]

Um, I think it was earlier in this thread I pointed out the WW1 parrallel. "Okay lads, think of blighty! The folks back home are relying on you. Just one more push and we'll get 'em off the hill... "

Historicaly, it _is_ possible to march troops motivated by patriotic fervour into the jaws of death. Repeatedly. America experienced this in the Civil War, which made US commanders reluctant to do the same in WW1, but many 20th century armies spent soldiers like nobody's business. And if appeals to patriotism fails, you have the 'bulldog' troops (military police, commissars etc) who shoot/stab any man who turns to flee. Soviet infantry charges vs King Tigers looks a lot like the D&D paradigm to me, with a similar result - the infantry die in droves, but in the end the KTs have to retreat or be overrun and destroyed.

This is a point worth repeating...it is a fact that in the 20th century you could get poorly trained conscripts to withstand heavy artillery and charge machine gun nests. And there was plenty of massed infantry, and massive casualties.

Of course, armies did break down enventually, at least in WWI, but it took years and losses in the millions.

 

[Dinkeldog]

Closed for crossing that political boundary. If you want to discuss which cultures are warlike, please discuss whether the warforged in the Mournland are.