Great White Games/Pinnacle Entertainment Group

[zugzug]

Hey, I'm running a homebrew Deadlands campaign. The next session I'm running calls for a mass battle. I've read the rules for mass battles in the Savage Worlds Explorers Edition (I don't have deluxe, are the rules different?)

I like how the mass battle keeps thing simple, but I'd like to have the battles be a little more based on strategy (say, the players using a map and determining how they fortify the town they are defending, where they position their forces, etc.) than a simple Knowledge: Battle roll. None of the posse made generals, shockingly, and I don't want them to be punished for that. At the same time, I don't want the battle to be too complex or too time-consuming.

I'm imagining some kind of mashup between risk and the savage worlds mass battle rules. Or some other way to make it more interesting/strategy-based than just a series of modified battle rolls...

Any thoughts?

[ashenwolf]

Knowledge battle could be a common knowledge skill for someone with combat experience, then just represent the lack of detailed training by limiting the planning bonuses they might otherwise get. Or an npc could help organize things.
Instead of making it one combat roll when characters help out frame scenes for the characters in the battle, how well they do in the mini mission effects the next battle roll.

Mass battles are mostly narrative but if you want more detail without alot of side scenes you could maybe do a regular battle but make each figure represent a unit. Attach characters to a unit and so on. Make the modifiers more about tactics and terrain. No system for it though that I am aware of.

[TheLoremaster]

What I've tried to do is use the Mass Battle rules to resolve a more narrative battle, than a tactical one; something between the Interludes rules and the Combat rules. If you consider each battle turn to be an elastic length of time, a lot can happen, so let the players describe their own turns in as much detail as possible. This can be a great way to get more bennies into the players' hands ... which they'll probably need to Soak their battle damage rolls.

So when one player describes setting alight a hidden trail of oil, and another describes taking potshots at the invaders out of the town church's belfry, you'll be ready.
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"Your GM is metagaming ... and wrong!"