9 replies to this topic

[Chosen]

I have no idea when I could ever run this, or who I would run it for, but I have been thinking about dong a game of Dungeons & Dragons based with the PCs being in an army.  Most games are based around a small adventuring group and I think it could be fun to experience the similar situations in a new dynamic.  I have a visual of 300 people fighting a dragon, with groups trying to achieve separate goals in order to slay the beast.  Or in another instance seeing 100 people enter a dungeon.  Not all situations are better with an army, and that would be part of the fun.

The PCs will have to work on teamwork from the beginning of the game. As they advance in level they would advance in rank, gaining more control over what goes on in the missions.

Has anyone played in or ran a game like this?

[SalmonMax]

I've been in some sci-fi military games...but even then it was more squad-scale, not what you're talking about here. And not D&D.

It'd be interesting...though all the stuff happening away from the PC's would necessarily be "backdrop" stuff, I'd imagine.

[Chosen]

Yeah, I've played in a few sci-fi military games as well and figured that would be more common for other people.  In my games I like to do a lot with dynamic landscapes and the backdrop stuff that is going on elsewhere would be used as a way to give the players an idea of what is going to happen.  For example, they are fighting a couple giants and another squad is being overrun by orcs.  When the other squad fails the PCs will be next in line to stop the orcs, so they had better take care of the giants before they have to battle both.

Later on in the game the characters could get control of the squad-scale warfare if they were interested, otherwise I would keep it focused on them.

[Logic1]

I've been in a couple TT D&D games where the DM has run some encounters like this.  We enjoyed it.  Battlefield control factored in heavily.  Like you said with the giants and orcs.  How far away are the orcs from the giants?  What is the terrain like along the way?  Having command of other troops makes things very interesting.  I say this to say I think it's a good idea and I know people like the playstyle because I've seen it done.

[Kristin Mackenzie]

There was a book for D&D 3rd Edition - Heroes of Battle - that dealt with the dynamics of a group of heroes interacting within a Military/Mass Combat setting. Has some neat ideas. If you can find a copy, might have some ideas for you to purloin.

[Chosen]

Thanks for the feedback Logic1.  I'm glad to hear that your group enjoyed it.  

And thanks for the book recommendation KM.  I'll see if I can find it.

[Mr Fox]

Just to clarify, are you talking about a table top game or pbp on the site?  The idea sounds very interesting.  

I've done a similar thing before with players running multiple characters.  I had run each group of characters as long running games, one set of characters Camrilla, the other Sabbat and then threw them both into Gehenna, and the players got to experience the "end of the world" from both perspectives. (Incidentally, I did gehenna much better than WW.  When the WW released the books later, my players much preferred what we had done to the books.)

[Chosen]

My idea is for a tabletop rpg game and not a pbp.  As much fun as it would be there is no way that I could ever run a play by post game.  I just don't have the consistent time to give to it.  But I can hopefully squeeze out a few hours every few weeks to run a tabletop game at some point.

What were some of the highlights of you Gehenna game?

[Stargaizer]

I've played in an Eberron game where the PC's were a band of pirates.  That meant that there were lots of other people on board than just the PC's.  Most of these were either two or three man groups directly controlled by the PC (they told them what to do and they did it), or they were just controlled by the DM.  It wasn't exactly the same thing, but when we were off the ship it was fairly squad like (though there was no larger body that we were deferring to).  It was really fun... I played a changling ninja.

[Mr Fox]

For my Gehenna game... it was the same group of players playing both sets of characters.  The cam game ran for about 2.5 years and got shelved, and then the Sabbat game ran for about 2 years.  Both sets of characters had become quite powerful over the course of the games and had reached the pinnacle of their respective sides.  The Gehenna game brought both sets of characters into the same city at the same time and seeing the 'end of the world' from different viewpoints.  Several of the 3rd gens woke up and caused havoc, and through their efforts the two sets of characters influenced the outcome and helped save the world.  It was a lot of fun.