How can I run a military campaign over a messageboard?

[Stoat]

Here's the setup:

I wrapped up a long-running campaign a few years ago. The PC's retired and are minor nobles in a frontier area. They are all quite high level (between 19 and 21). A nearby mountainous region is heavily infested with goblins and hobgoblins. Thousands of 'em. Many of the goblinoids have class levels, and several are in the low-epic-level range.

The players have been talking about the old game on our campaign messageboard, and they're starting to discuss clearing the goblins out of the mountains. I like the idea, and would like to run it over the board. Thing is, it's not the kind of thing D&D is particularly well-suited for. In a D&D-style skirmish, the PC's would die of fatigue before the goblins could kill them, but the goblins can always run away, hide, disperse or otherwise avoid the six-man strike team.

So. I'm looking for a game system to run a small-scale war over a messageboard. Something with a focus on the strategic allocation of troops and resources, but not too complicated.

Anybody got any ideas?

 

[Clueless]

Your best bet may be to retool a standard board game for it - like axis and allies. I can't think of any RPGs that handle that sort of campaign level well. Alternatively you can do nearly diceless with it, at most use a flip of the coin for those circumstances where there really is a chance of the outcome being different and rely on your players to trust you to interpret their choices well.

 

[MINI]

How large scale are we talking. I have run some large combats with OpenRPG by doing a rolld of [20 d20] and teh results go as:

[20d20] => [3,13,5,15,9,2,9,10,16,7,16,5,8,16,15,19,14,19,11,7] = (219)

Froom this I ignore teh 219 result and look at all teh individual totals. If my goblins have say a +5 to hit i the unit,. I add that in my head to all teh individual rolls aand not which ones might even have a chance of hitting anything/one

I then roll 20d6 (if there are 6 members in the party):

[20d6] => [3,6,1,3,4,1,4,3,5,4,1,5,2,3,2,6,1,3,4,4] = (65)

Again I ignore 65 but match up teh 14th attack roll to teh 14th die 6 roll to see which party memeber that oparticular roll hit.

I have found I can resolve large combats quickly like this. Or at least as quick as they can be done. OpenRPG also offers minis and maps so that helps too.

If you think this might help your situation please email me at danjnm_2000@yahoo.com with a subject header of 'Enworld help'

 

[S'mon]

Classic D&D Companion/RC 'War Machine' rules are ideal for high level battles without a board. The PCs can build armies, seeking to max out their Battle Rating, and take on goblinoid forces, decide their tactics (all-out attack, envelop, trap, etc) then battles can be resolved by a single d% roll on each side that leaves thousands dead...

Edit: War Machine is great with armies in the thousands & above. At under a thousand, high-level PCs can probably demolish the enemy in regular play.

 

[Emirikol]

Three words: myth-weavers.com

jh