Hi there!
I’d want to start with you a discussion about the management as a GM of a city’s siege: my party stands for defense, how do you role all the session? At the momenti I thought dividing the city map in locations such as Wall, Gate, City Centre, Gutter ecc. where the PGs could act and achieve their purpose (save the people, allay with the enemy, killing, raid ecc.). Any advice? I was also thinking about using Siege Machines both for attack and defense, do you know custom moves about?
Thanks a lot!
Andrea Di Stefano I’d start by reading the discussion in this post (https://plus.google.com/u/0/112927717624783896961/posts/E9WYr9GwWCF). It addresses some of the concepts you’re dealing with. Then let us know what you think.
Or you could also change the scale of each basic move. Hack n slash represents hours of melee combat, spout lore is days of scouting, studying warfare manuals etc.
I’d suggest you create a Front to represent the progress of the siege with the impending doom being the city overrun. Then you can have a sense of the flow of the enemy attack. If the PCs are making active attempts to undermine the sieging army, you could also create a Front for the sieging army to show the PC progression to their routing.
I really thank you, that was exactly what I’m looking for. I’ll work on it. As far as siege machines? I mean battering ram, catapult and stuff alike? Should I prepare custom moves?Ari Black
Yep I’ll go custom moves!
Could you give me an example? I still have to learn more about custom moves ._. Addramyr Palinor
When you throw rocks with a Trebuchet, roll + INT. 10+ you hit exactly your target and do dmg. 7-9 the shot is slightly off, you do dmg but you also hit an unintended target.
Or you could just use Volley move.
thanks!
This discussion got me thinking about using a front to model the siege. It sounds good at first, but then I though of the way that the PCs can influence the front. In a normal “character-scale” front, there are character-scale things that individuals can do to disturb the march of the front’s grim portents. In a mass combat though, there may be whole armies of creatures that need defeating, and a handful of heroes just can’t fight through the lot of them. Sure, they can try to kill the leaders, but not every army battle in fiction involves the protagonists sneaking out and assassinating the enemy’s commanders.
So, I started to think about custom moves that could realistically allow the characters to have a large-scale influence… “when you lead the King’s Cavaliers in a glorious charge,” or “when you step up and take command of a leaderless squad of infantry,” or “when you pore over the general’s maps and propose an unorthodox tactic,” or “when you direct the fire of the archers from the walls”…
But then I thought, I reckon you could do all of that with Defy Danger. I know it gets a lot of use, being the “default move” and all, but it really is a good one.
So, I’ve come full circle and decided that I agree: you don’t need any custom mechanics for mass combat, you can just use fronts, plus encourage the players to also think large-scale in how they respond to the events of that front.
(Of course, having some custom moves on the table like the ones I listed above, but with actual results for 10+ and 7-9, might help show the players some examples of what they could do.)
Custom moves are a way of setting up narrative color and possible plot shifts ahead of time. You can achieve he same results the standard moves and in the moment creativity, however sometimes getting these ideas down in advance can free up creative energy in play.
When you fight off an attack against one part of the wall, roll +the number of characters defending that area (max +3). On a 10+ you repel the attack. On a 7-9 you repel the attack, but choose two:
– A character is injured
– Defenses are permanently weakened in that area
– Some attackers have made it into the city
– It was a diversion and the main attack is in another area