BR Campaign without Wargame aspect?

[Rusted Cage]

Hello
Please forgive me if this question is posted in the wrong forum, it seemed the most appropriate place to me. Also, please forgive me if I have started too many topics. I know I'm a newbie and don't wish to offend anyone.

Ok, so it maybe a silly question but is it possible to play a Birthright Campaign without the wargame aspect? See, it's been a fair few years since I last played Birthright but even then I could never get to grips with the wargame rules. I loved every other aspect of the setting, even the domain management, therefore my games tended to be of a focus on roleplaying and political intrigue.

However, I have to admit that without the wargame element, domain management tended to become rather pointless. So do any of you have any pointers on how to run a BR campaign without mass scale warfare, or even better, pointers on how to make mass scale warfare more simple?

Sorry about the long post Thanks folks!

[kgauck]

Running a campaign without warfare is easy. If you want a campaign with a focus on politics and intrigue, run one about politics and intrigue.

The simplest form of mass combat rules go like this, heads these guys win, tails they lose. The winner suffers 10% casualties, and the loser suffers the same. Done.

[Birthright-L]

At 05:56 PM 5/23/2009, Rusted Cage wrote:

>Ok, so it maybe a silly question but is it possible to play a
>Birthright Campaign without the wargame aspect? See, it`s been a
>fair few years since I last played Birthright but even then I could
>never get to grips with the wargame rules. I loved every other
>aspect of the setting, even the domain management, therefore my
>games tended to be of a focus on roleplaying and political intrigue.

>However, I have to admit that without the wargame element, domain
>management tended to become rather pointless. So do any of you have
>any pointers on how to run a BR campaign without mass scale warfare,
>or even better, pointers on how to make mass scale warfare more simple?

I never liked the BR large scale combat rules either, so I never
really used them. There are a LOT of problems with warcards. There
are several different rules that you can use to resolve that kind of
thing, and I`m sure if you poke around you can find one that you`d prefer.

Personally, I tend to fuze systems into other systems to come up with
some sort of hybrid, but what makes the most sense to me lately is to
have military be represented as a value that compares to a
holding. That is, regents raise an Army(X) or Navy(X) just the same
way a regent creates and rules up holdings. Conflicts are then
resolved in a way that mimics the domain rules. A battle is a sort
of Contest action. Castles, terrain, troop types, commanders and
tactics all represent modifiers on the checks to resolve that
action. That way the large scale combat system meshes well with the
existing domain rules, and is as easily resolved as any other domain action.

Gary

[Rusted Cage]

Thank you fellas, I'll think on what you have said. I suppose there is no point in feeling guilt at not using all the rules, is there?

[kgauck]

Absolutely not.

[Birthright-L]

At 04:39 PM 5/25/2009, Rusted Cage wrote:

>I suppose there is no point in feeling guilt at not using all the
>rules, is there?

Many folks around here are rules tweakers, so you`ll not get a lot of
folks who are particularly worried about such things. In fact, I`d
be interested in anything you come up with for resolving large scale combat.

Gary

[Kitch]

While I am still doing, as you said, tweaking the system, I've had some relative success with still using the warcard-idea of gameplay. Only, I have expanded the size of the map and use minitures (if in person) or MS Paint (if online) to move pieces like a chess game. In this manner, war is alot like any other DnD encounter, only the minitures are armies, not heroes.

[Rey]

That is a classic mathematical approach, something we've used in our games. It resolves combat quickly, but... if you lose, you lose much more than one, two, or three soldiers.

[Kitch]

Well, such is the cost of war. You can't take a province without expecting to lose a few lives in the process.

But I have also toyed with the concept of a unit making morale checks everytime they are either killed or routed from the field. My general rule of thumb is that is routed faces a morale DC based on enemy units and friendly units at the end of the battle, whereas a 'destroyed' unit could make the same morale check only if their side proves to be the victor - and potentially return recover from the battle (wounded, unconscious, etc being recovered and re-enlisted.)

[kgauck]

Units don't normally fight to the death. Doing so requires retreat being cut off. Normal units become ineffective and run away or always fall back, once they reach about 30% casualties.

Do destroyed units should be recoverable after battle with 30-40% losses, if they weren't run down and killed or captured by light cavalry, scouts, or other especially mobile units after the battle.

Units that are themselves swift, are almost impossible to run down, so the vulnerable units are heavy infantry, pikes, and so on. Plus, once the general retreat has begun, its possible for still functioning swift or ranged units to attempt to engage pursuers to protect such destroyed units. It would be silly to pursue a defeated foe with more functioning swift and ranged units than you sent to pursue.

It presents one of those nice opportunity cost situations war is so full of- light units are poor or useless in main battles, but are very useful before and after battles. So deploying heavy units to win battle means less resources to deploy light units to exploit and pursue. Too many light units, and you can only harass armies, not defeat them.