So guys, I need some advice. What do you do when one of your players becomes a queen of a kingdom. Then kill the king to become the only leader and now raising an army? I ask this because now I need army rules that are not there in the system from what I see.
So guys, I need some advice.
So guys, I need some advice.
Why do you need army rules? Just do what makes sense given the fiction. 🙂
Make fronts that threaten the whole kingdom/queendom. If you’ve played Apocalypse World, you may know that the Hardholder has the most trouble holding onto what they have. I can just imagine how difficult things can get on a nation-wide scale. She might not have time to raise the army she needs!
Tim Jensen Has this about right, and to extend: AW has rules for small armies, basically. Probably not the War Rules you’re looking for, but you can absolutely have a gang of 50 or 60 using those rules.
To be more helpful, I agree with Tim Jensen about making Fronts and Dangers, just on a nationwide scale.
Wonderful. I will look it up to see what I can do. Thanks guys.
Yeah.. Any official rules are probably in the ‘Inglorious’ supplement, which isn’t out yet.
For now, your best bet is probably making some custom moves for things like clashing armies, laying siege, supplying forces away from home. Large-scale stuff that you expect your player might do. (If invading is their goal.)
Also don’t forget the home front, as others mentioned, where there might be assassination attempts, rebellion, and demands from the populace.
Lastly, I’d say make sure not to forget the other players. Engaging everyone is super dependent on what the players themselves are interested in, so you’re the best judge of that.
The general idea with armies (gangs, cults, holds, crews, guilds, etc) is that you make moves with them the same way you would with a sword or a car. Say how you do it, then roll.
The move has to make sense, of course. (you can surely Hack and Slash with an army. You can volley if you’re playing at the right scale. Can you Discern Realities with your scouts and Spout Lore with your sages? I don’t see why not).
The trick is to always remember, and play up, that groups are made up of individuals and maybe subgroups and factions. Sometimes they’ll act as a group exactly as you want. But sometimes they’ll fight amongst themselves, challenge you for control, refuse a direction or kick back at one. Pursue the groups goals as they see them/in their own way, or pursue their own goals via the group or outside it.
This is all stuff to use in your regular moves, and in response to player moves.
I don’t think I entirely agree Shane Donohoe. If the PCs are with the army and taking point on the action, then I could see making a “normal” move.
But if we’re talking about a group of NPCs off acting on their own, then I don’t feel “normal” moves are appropriate. A group of NPC scouts wouldn’t roll Discern Reality in my opinion. The GM would just make a move as appropriate based on the situation.
If anything I would use a custom move that allows the PC to inspire their soldiers.
Right! Important point. I’d never have NPCs make a move when off by themselves. Sorry for that impression.
I just want to chime in that the Last Days of Anglekite book has rules for raising/recruiting armies, differentiating army sizes (assign each a die size) and army features (tags with concrete rules), mundane and mythological units, and mass combat moves.
Obviously, true to DW, it’s not too crunchy. You certainly won’t need a ruler and a calculator. But it goes beyond making army/nation specific fronts and extends into actual mass conflict resolution, which sounds like what you’re looking for.
(While I haven’t used those army rules, I’ve used the Anglekite setting with my friends. It was rad.)
where can I find this?
Ha, that would have been useful information. Sorry about that!
You can get the Last Days of Anglekite on RPG Drive Thru here: http://drivethrurpg.com/product/145952/The-Last-Days-of-Anglekite
(For the record, it’s full of great fronts, magic items, and compendium classes. It’s worth the $10 even without the mass combat.)
And if you want more information about the setting and book itself, the successful Kickstarter is probably your best source of info: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/marktruman/the-last-days-of-anglekite-a-chaos-world-from-magp/description
If they outsource war to their generals, treat that as a Front that needs monitoring and play to the uncertainty that comes with leading from the rear, hearing about things after the fact, and having to delegate authority OR suffer the consequences of unlimbered actions.
I had decent results playing a fantasy Battle For Moscow game (http://grognard.com/bfm/game.html) using an erasable hex grid with the local topography marked instead of the map of Russia. Preparation before the battle allows the players to change the map (add fortification lines, cut down woods, re route streams, make forested units ‘invisible’ to the enemy until they break cover, essentially anything they thought up that they had time to pull off, with Defy Danger rolls if appropriate). Different unit types gave different dice (peasants were d4, knights d8, etc) whose values were halved when they would be ‘reduced a step’ by the B4M manual. Routed at 1. Heroes step units up a die if they fight alongside them, but get captured / murdered as per the unit’s fate.
It went okay. I was mostly laying the groundwork for if they ended up fighting the Big Bad by throwing a whole army at him. (They didn’t)