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General Tabletop Discussion
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World Building: Army building
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<blockquote data-quote="Asisreo" data-source="post: 9051132" data-attributes="member: 7019027"><p>So, D&D isn't a true wargame where you're <em>supposed</em> to emulate real-world warfare. </p><p></p><p>Generally, if a war is happening and it doesn't directly influence the main focus that the party is going through, it gets handwaved in a sentence or two. "The Ilustian army is in war with the Crote army." At that point, its minor worldbuilding. </p><p></p><p>I wait until the players decide to pivot to where it's relevant before building on the war. If they visit either countries, they'll see the impact of the war on the nobility and citizens. </p><p></p><p>Now, if all of the players want to engage in full-on warfare for one side or another as part of their emergent story, then I handle it like this: </p><p></p><p>When they're "footsoldiers" on the frontline, I give them an encounter day where they likely will have 4-6 combat encounters in a relatively short amount of time. Everything else gets handwaved and, since the party is the main characters, their results directly impact the battle's results. </p><p></p><p>So, rather than making specific armies with specific stats, numbers, and supplies, I'm making the armies a setting itself. </p><p></p><p>If they're commanders, I tend to make them do contested intelligence rolls with the enemy commanders and narrate the results. So if they succeed on their plan to distract the enemy and hit their supply caravans to the target location, they resolve that in a roll or two and I narrate that after a few days the target location for the caravans fall due to lack of supplies. </p><p></p><p>But ultimately, I ask my players and feel out how deep they really want to go with it. I can try to make the war very immersive and engaging but if the players don't want to deal with all that, then I handwave it all away.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Asisreo, post: 9051132, member: 7019027"] So, D&D isn't a true wargame where you're [I]supposed[/I] to emulate real-world warfare. Generally, if a war is happening and it doesn't directly influence the main focus that the party is going through, it gets handwaved in a sentence or two. "The Ilustian army is in war with the Crote army." At that point, its minor worldbuilding. I wait until the players decide to pivot to where it's relevant before building on the war. If they visit either countries, they'll see the impact of the war on the nobility and citizens. Now, if all of the players want to engage in full-on warfare for one side or another as part of their emergent story, then I handle it like this: When they're "footsoldiers" on the frontline, I give them an encounter day where they likely will have 4-6 combat encounters in a relatively short amount of time. Everything else gets handwaved and, since the party is the main characters, their results directly impact the battle's results. So, rather than making specific armies with specific stats, numbers, and supplies, I'm making the armies a setting itself. If they're commanders, I tend to make them do contested intelligence rolls with the enemy commanders and narrate the results. So if they succeed on their plan to distract the enemy and hit their supply caravans to the target location, they resolve that in a roll or two and I narrate that after a few days the target location for the caravans fall due to lack of supplies. But ultimately, I ask my players and feel out how deep they really want to go with it. I can try to make the war very immersive and engaging but if the players don't want to deal with all that, then I handwave it all away. [/QUOTE]
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