D&D General War! What is it Good For (in your campaigns)?

[Bolares]

I like how Rising looks at war and post war campaigns. Almost every aspect of the book has a "how has the Last War affected this" section

 

[el-remmen]

My "Out of the Frying Pan" campaign began with the premise that the PCs should have a reason to want to avoid conscription as a major war erupting in the setting and thus sign up to go do some adventuring "on the frontier."

 

[Bolares]

My "Out of the Frying Pan" campaign began with the premise that the PCs should have a reason to want to avoid conscription as a major war erupting in the setting and thus sign up to go do some adventuring "on the frontier."

is "I really don't wanna go to war" a good reason?

 

[ART!]

One of my campaign ideas would have the PCs as members of a specialized squad in an army or larger mercenary group. The PCs would get assigned missions - catered by me to the skillsets pf the characters.

So, I don't have many answers or thoughts beyond that, but I'm keenly interested in the conversation.

 

[el-remmen]

is "I really don't wanna go to war" a good reason?

It was at least one PC's reason!

• One was a dwarf, who as part of a minority community in a majority human nation did not want to fight for a nation that treated him as a second class citizen.
• Two were exiles from another country and were just trying to avoid getting swept up in the schemes over-eager and unscrupulous recruiters who used the local constabulary to effectively press-gang folks
• One was originally from the enemy nation and despite his role in the clergy, realized he would be in prison at best and under house arrest at worst for however long the war lasted.
• One was a woman who could not be conscripted, but joined up with the adventurers because she had her own reason to leave town.
  
  Others included someone who was part of a fishing village who were hiding all their eligible young men for their own labor reasons, but he slipped away to bring a note to a betrothed and ended up snapped up by the authorities - so he joined up on this option in hopes of getting back sooner and in one piece.
  
  And so on. . .
  

 

[Voadam]

I use an imperial succession war backdrop in my homebrew mashup campaign setting. Mostly the religious civil war multi faction aspects of Ptolus, Eberron's war, and the Freeport continental wars but making them current.

This provides a full magic D&D world but most areas are stripped of soldiers and powerful people for the war effort so anything that is going on locally is less likely to be dealt with by the government or the powerful imperial church or local power people as they are off fighting or dealing with the war, leaving more room and need for adventurers/local heroes.

This also allows me to have big powerful cool setting NPCs for lore purposes but natural reasons they are not involved in what the party is.

 

[Bolares]

One was a dwarf, who as part of a minority community in a majority human nation did not want to fight for a nation that treated him as a second class citizen.

This guy knows what's up!

 

[Voadam]

I have played in a Wrath of the Righteous adventure path where we led troops into battle and a Red Hand of Doom campaign where the whole plot is an invasion war.

 

[Shiroiken]

I've used wars as background, PCs as an elite unit, and with PCs leading an army. Background generally works best at lower levels, as leading an army really requires the party to be strong enough to have an army. Being an elite unit might be cool for a while, but I don't think it would be interesting enough to hold for an entire campaign.

Wars Don't Happen in Dungeons: a lot of time is spent in dungeons. Wars don't happen there.

Then you aren't doing it right! The kobolds could be encroaching on goblin territory, while both have to give tribute to drow or face extermination. Intelligent underground monsters can go to war with each other just like those on the surface.

 

[David Howery]

I can only remember using a war scenario once in the campaigns I DMd, and the PCs were basically on the fringes of it, carrying out commando raids and the like. I only did a couple of mass battles, one of which was a sorta replay of Rorke's Drift (with goblins standing in for the Zulus)....