Worlds of Design: There's a War On!

Picture courtesy of Pixabay.​

"In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity." - Sun Tzu

Despite the many wars going on around the world today, warfare (as a concept) is much frowned upon these days. This hasn’t always been the case, and earlier societies regularly planned for war. Of course, hardly anyone wants to BE in a war (just ask the soldiers).

By a war, I mean a typical conventional armed conflict between independent polities such as kingdoms or dukedoms, not an internal police action or gang war (though these offer other opportunities).

Warfare is violent change, and in fantasy role-playing games this is often expressed as good vs. evil. Historically, wars tend to break deadlocks, turning historical trends one way or the other. As such, wars can make for compelling opportunities for adventure, for those in military service and those who aren’t. Here’s a few ideas to get you started.

Non-Military Opportunities​

You don't have to be in actual military service to take advantage of some of these opportunities.

• Ambassador: To another polity, trying to get them to enter the war on your side or not join the other side.
• Assassination: In human history assassination has rarely been used against leaders of another country. But that doesn’t have to be true in a fantasy world.
• Break Someone Out: This is rarely practical in the real world but with the boost of magic, and stealth, and unusual creatures, it might be fairly common in a fantasy world.
• Collect Rumors: Maybe not so different from what many adventurers do almost every day; but the war rumors they look for must be more reliable than something from the local tavern.
• Find New Allies: Given how powerful monsters can be in RPGs compared with a typical soldier, why wouldn’t countries make strong efforts to recruit monsters?
• Gather Information: Whether the local bigwig or an ordinary person. Keep in mind there are more effective means of coercion, in a magical world, than mere torture.
• Humanitarian: Rescuing displaced persons/refugees, for example. Or taking food supplies to people (or even troops) cut off from their homes.
• Sabotage: Destroying the enemy’s logistics, or infrastructure such as bridges, or their ships, may be common, especially with all the stealth inherent to RPGs.
• Spying: Not unique, but different in actual wartime. Among other things, spies are exchanged or imprisoned in peacetime, in wartime they are often killed.

In Military Service​

• Generalship: Likely presumes higher level characters. Leading a large body of troops, even an army.
• Guerilla Warfare: Magic and fantastic creatures provide many more opportunities for both sides in guerilla war.
• Leading Troops: Adventurers may be natural leaders for military units. The responsibility to keep your troops alive will be different from the norm, for most adventurers.
• Scouting Behind Enemy Lines: Far more exciting in a magical setting.
• Serving as Soldiers: Only people new to adventuring are likely to be army “grunts.”
• War Missions: Guns of Navarone, Where Eagles Dare, Saving Private Ryan, Apocalypse Now, and lots of other war movies about special operations can have analogs in a fantasy world. Or wilder stuff like the often-comical Kelly's Heroes (going behind enemy lines to capture a gold hoard!).

War is hell. But it also shatters deadlocks, accelerates historical trends, and creates a vacuum of opportunity not just for soldiers, but for anyone skilled enough to navigate the chaos. By framing warfare as a catalyst for opportunity, Game Masters can leverage it to drastically change the course of their campaign.

Your Turn: How do you use war in your campaigns in the context of adventurers?

 

[Koloth]

Ferengi Rule of Acquisition #34: War is good for business.
Related: #35: Peace is good for business.

Blockade running. Smuggling(supplies, information, people). Supplying the army. Supplying the other side's army.
Privateer - normally ocean based but could be land based. Prize money for supplies captured. Falls into traditional adventurer fare - kill things and take their loot.
Unauthorized negotiations for a cease fire so new trade routes can be setup(#35). Paying someone to raid the new trade routes to drive prices up(#34).

 

[billd91]

Back in our 1e days, our DM set the campaign world on a global war course with an expansionist, demon-worshipping empire and its allies. We players had multiple PCs in that setting from a variety of loose adventurer groups in which we brought the PCs we wanted to play that adventure - your basic troupe style of play. That worked really well for what we were to do.
Most of us in the group were college freshmen when the war broke out and had come home for the winter break - and so we had a lot of time on our hands. We played nearly every day for weeks - putting together scratch parties of our varying characters for different missions - rescuing prisoners, assassinating an enemy general, finding the Great Hero of Destiny that the good side needed to win, etc. It was great fun and we got a lot of playing in - all with the backdrop of the war.

 

[Voadam]

I set my various campaigns in the midst of a theocratic succession war within the giant Holy Lothian Empire in my mashup campaign setting.

This allows me to have advantages from both a points of light type setting and a lore heavy big civilization setting.

Since many power players are drawn into the war and conscripted into war efforts most areas are left without the big forces that would normally be there from magical empires to handle anything that comes up. Everything that is left behind is stretched thin and vulnerable while the knights and soldiers and wizards and clerics are crusading on the front lines of the war. This sets it up to plausibly leave it mostly to the PCs to deal with the adventure problems instead of high level NPCs or armies.

I also can have tons of big organizations and churches and things from major civilizations exist, such as say intact and operational libraries or universities, which would be harder to plausibly exist in an isolated points of light setting.

I find most every adventure and adventure path I run slots in well with such a world backdrop going on.