How the heck did medieval war work? And other rambling questions.

[gizmo33]

In reality, I don't care much for the medieval period, but I like the fantasy genre and D&D as a setting (which I guess is kind of strange).

You and seemingly everyone who's written for WotC in the last 10 years. My guess is that you're probably in the majority. I think mohawks were pretty rare in the middle ages.

I'm the kind of guy who has to have a logical consistency in his game world, so I can't rightly have a war fought with swords, spears, arrows and a touch of magic work the same as a war fought with rifles and artillery.

Depends what you mean by "work the same". IMO the results achieved by the historical medieval period were a combination of factors balanced on a razor's edge. There's no reason that the disease, crops, social structures, technology etc. can't all be varied in minute ways to produce big changes. There's no reason AFAICT that the capabilities of DnD world would have to resemble Medieval Europe more than the Roman Empire, ancient China, or the lands under medieval Islam. I would be very skeptical of a historian-type making definite claims for what an imaginary world would be like.

So I say go with what interests you, and flesh out the details only to the point that you think the results would be convincing to the players. Heck, the helmets of WW1 were based pretty directly on medieval helmets, weren't they? You're part way there.

My favorite conflict in history is probably the First World War, and I'm using that as inspiration (the characters are citizens of the country roughly analogous to Germany), but I feel I can't get the feel I want, which is political, cultural and physical devastation and pointless loss of life, with what I imagine a D&D war would look like. At least, I can't do that without introducing elements that would break the whole thing for me. Poison gas I could easily do, but constant shelling is hard. And, almost most importantly, it's hard to come up with something in a fantasy universe analogous to trench warfare in terms of psychology and atmosphere.

Makes me think of the ruined cities, one of which was vividly illustrated in the Lord of the Rings movies. "Constant shelling" might be hard, but a flock of dragons or carrion crow swarms might produce the same effect. Survivors that huddle in the sewers to avoid the dragons might find that some of their numbers have turned to ghouls as the result of a curse. With magic at your disposal I would think it would be pretty easy to create a frightening environment and siege mentality. (There's also a movie called "Reign of Fire" that this reminds me of.)

How can I get something similar to the front, with both sides at a stalemate, throwing men at each other's entrenchments with little to no gain in a medieval setting? I guess that's my main question. I'm afraid I don't have the imagination to come up with an answer.

The key idea, IMO, is to make defense more valuable than offense. This means taking a second look at powers and abilities that comprimise fortresses - like rock to mud and such. There are innumerable ways of making sure that the defender has the advantage in conflicts, but it might take a little work depending on the rules you're using and the capabilities/level of your PCs.

And "throwing men at each other's entrenchments with little/no gain" is what the PCs will be doing? If it's just the NPCs then just say this is how it goes. If you want the PCs to experience the futility of attacking a castle and getting nowhere (this is something I have a lot of experience with ), then a healthy combination of traps, lurkers, mazes, and such might do the trick. Don't worry about "level appropriate" challenges.

 

[knightofround]

Lots of awesomeness

I've always been a big fan of Roman history, and I'm in the process of creation my own Roman-esque campaign. Even though my campaign is built around an earlier version of Rome (I'm aiming for approximately 100 BC, whereas it seems your setting is probably closer to 100 AD) we have many similiar ideas. I would love to hear more about your campaign, and would encourage you to post in Plots&Places.

To the OP, I would recommend against trying to simulate medieval warfare because it doesn't work very well with 4E D&D imo. Medieval combat was very inert and were more a battle of endurance than skill or strength, which can make for an interesting strategy game...but not the fast-paced nature of D&D.

I've found that the best fit for D&D warfare is WWII tactics. It was really the first period that surgical strikes, highly mobile units, and the importance of reconassiance rose to the forefront. A group of adventures can excell and easily drive the story in this kind of scenario...its much more difficult for PCs to really "be the stars" if they're manning trenches or undergoing a seige.

All that being said, if you're hellbent on figuring out how to simulate a siege in a magical setting, I would highly recommend the book "Brothers in Arms" by by Don Perrin & Margaret Weis. Its the second book in the "Raistlin" series, although you don't need to read the first one. Basically it shows how Caramon and Raistlin train for magical warefare. The last half of the book focuses on the siege of an enemy keep, and it might give you a couple ideas. Unfortunately other than that I haven't found any other good fiction that gives good ideas on how to handle sieges. Perhaps the "liberation" of Cairhien in book 5 of the Wheel of Time is the next closest bet, but even that is a little light on details.

 

[Herschel]

Wow. I don't mean to step on Herschel's helpfulness, but I un-recommend all those movies in the strongest possible terms. You'll know vastly less about history after you're done watching them.

Oh, the history in them is absolute bunk. But the FEEL of certain aspects of battle is very well done. That's why it's a passive learning vs. an active. Others had pointed out good active sources for "crunch". These are the "fluff".

And the feel is important because it needs to feel fun and relatively close. No matter how historically accurate you make a battle, Wizards/Sorcerers/Spellchuckers in general will muck it up.

 

[Andor]

In my upcoming game, I plan on the PCs living and adventuring in a kingdom currently fighting a two front war. I don't know if they'll get involved in the conflict yet, as for the moment I'm planning on having them mainly deal with internal affairs and conflicts. But, when I was thinking about adventures involving them fighting in the war itself, I realized that every assumption I'd made was based on post medieval war.

In reality, I don't care much for the medieval period, but I like the fantasy genre and D&D as a setting (which I guess is kind of strange). I'm the kind of guy who has to have a logical consistency in his game world, so I can't rightly have a war fought with swords, spears, arrows and a touch of magic work the same as a war fought with rifles and artillery.

My favorite conflict in history is probably the First World War, and I'm using that as inspiration (the characters are citizens of the country roughly analogous to Germany), but I feel I can't get the feel I want, which is political, cultural and physical devastation and pointless loss of life, with what I imagine a D&D war would look like. At least, I can't do that without introducing elements that would break the whole thing for me. Poison gas I could easily do, but constant shelling is hard. And, almost most importantly, it's hard to come up with something in a fantasy universe analogous to trench warfare in terms of psychology and atmosphere.

How can I get something similar to the front, with both sides at a stalemate, throwing men at each other's entrenchments with little to no gain in a medieval setting? I guess that's my main question. I'm afraid I don't have the imagination to come up with an answer.

I'm not sure what you mean by modern warfare. WW I is almost the opposite of modern warfare, regardless of the fact that it took place in the modern age.

Modern warfare is typified by three things. The primacy of offense, mobility, and rapid clear communications. Static defense is impossible, stealth and ambush are the only ways for a force without air supremacy to achieve anything at all.

In medieval warfare emplaced defenses were more powerful than offense. A castle could only be reduced by seige warfare which is a slow, ugly, brutal form of warfare.

This shifted during the renaisance with the development of cannon that could breach existing defenses in short order. This shifted back, briefly during World War I. From the development of the machine gun to the introduction of the tank the balance shifted back to emplace defenses, which is what led to the trench warfare and horrors of WWI.

So really WWI is kind of a restatement of medieval warfare with defense winning over offense leading to stalemate and seige. The war in the sky takes place with griffons and manticores replaceing sopwiths and folkers. Green slime grenades (at night) replace gas attacks and fireballs and call lightnings serve as artillery.

BTW if I recall correctly the Gulf War was the first war in history where more people died due to enemy action than to disease.

 

[S'mon]

I suggest a big siege at a critical choke point, such as a pass, an isthmus, a peninsula, or a big fortified city on a strait, like Constantinople. You need to reduce the size of the battle-space to get WW1 in the middle ages.

You also need states that can maintain a supply train, unlike real medieval nations. Only great empires like the Ottoman Empire had the degree of internal organisation necessary to funnel supplies; medieval armies normally had to live off the land, which made sieges very bad for the attacker as the local land was soon stripped bare.

 

[S'mon]

BTW if I recall correctly the Gulf War was the first war in history where more people died due to enemy action than to disease.

The Falklands War! 1982. I don't know how many Agentine conscripts died of pneumonia, but I'm pretty sure the battlefield casualties were a lot higher, around a thousand dead.

 

[Bumbles]

What about the Anglo-Zanzibar War? 38 minutes long, but still a war!

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I forgot to mention Harry Turtledove's (Harry Turtledove - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) Darkness series.

The Darkness Series - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

By writing a series of 6 large novels that are essentially about a fantasy world's equivalent to WW2, HT did gamers a HUGE favor.

1) We get magical tech, ranging from the spells tailors use on certain projects to do a seam, up to and including analogs of the guns, tanks, airplanes, the Manhattan Project & nuclear bomb, Project Habakkuk & Pykrete, and a necromantic Final Solution.

2) It is scientific magic- you get clued into the rules by which the magic was discovered and why it works...or doesn't. You even get to see some of the magical experimentation, with failures and successes.

3) You see a distinction between the magic of man- the rules of which he can discover and manipulate (analogous to arcane magic), and the magic of the gods (IOW, divine magic), which, while rare, can trump the underpinnings of the arcane world, making arcana unreliable or impossible. Caveat: divine magic as presented in these books is the result of direct divine intervention, not mortal manipulation of divine magic as per D&D.

4)) Its all framed within a nicely imagined, politically complex fantasy world...at war. Not only are the nations of this world modeled after the major players of WW2, many of the conflicts described within it echo key battles of that conflict as well.

Its a long read, but a good one, presented by a talented writer who happens to be a trained historian. If you're doing a campaign with a fantasy world at war, it could prove invaluable.

 

[Bumbles]

4)) Its all framed within a nicely imagined, politically complex fantasy world...at war.

Bwa-hah....Derlavia, politically complex. That gives me such a laugh. The whole set up is so clearly intended to fit in for WW2 that it really is overly simplified in order to well, work.

But I suppose it could be something of an example, though I think it's far too contrived as a Fantasy WW2 to be truly robust. I would note that Turtledove does have an American Civil War Fantasy series as well, with his War Between the Provinces books. 3 books so it is shorter than the Darkness books, and available free on Baen's website.

 

[Andor]

What about the Anglo-Zanzibar War? 38 minutes long, but still a war!

I'm not sure any conflict which one might miss while on lunch break counts as a war.