Though RQ lacks D&D's ability to manage large tactical battles.  It gets too fiddly.

Quote from: David Johansen;687918Though RQ lacks D&D's ability to manage large tactical battles.  It gets too fiddly.

Not in a significant manner, I believe, unless you are talking about really large battlefields, in which case D&D might not be appropriate either. If I was running really large engagements in a game, I would use Chainmail in AD&D's case, and probably something based on the Perrin Conventions with RuneQuest.

Roll initiative for sides, Roll d20 per 0HD combatant, roll damage for number of hits.  Remove casualties.

Verses

Roll d% to hit this must be done individually and sequentially based on strike rank or dex, check for fumble, special or critical success, roll damage, apply critical or special effect or roll for fumble effect, subtract armor from damage, roll hit location, check hit location effects.  Start on the next guy's attack.

yeah, whatever Ben...

I know you hate to admit that D&D's wargame roots have their uses, but I've run battles with hundreds of figures on the table using Castles and Crusades.  And it doesn't slow down much at all.  Though I tend to reduce all damages to single dice and give half HD hp to all 1 and 0 HD combatants.

Quote from: David Johansen;687921yeah, whatever Ben...

I know you hate to admit that D&D's wargame roots have their uses

Yeah, totally. That's what I keep saying to Ernie. That's why I want to build a sand table too: to be able to ignore those wargaming roots by playing the hell out of them! That's some impregnable logic right there, my friend. /sarcasm

I got that you were talking of ejecting 0 HD combatants with d20 rolls, but abstracting RQ would be trivial to me as well. I wouldn't use strike ranks and the like, like I'm sure you wouldn't worry about segments and weapon speeds in your D&D mass battle, to begin with, and as I mentioned, I'd look towards something like the Perrin Conventions to retro-engineer something manageable that would fit my vision of RQ.

Now your mileage vary, cool, which is why I said from the start "LIKEWISE, IN SOME GROUPS, THE REVERSE WILL ALSO BE TRUE..." Notice the "in some groups". You don't have to agree with that. That's MY mileage, not yours.

Now who do you think is trying to tell the other he's wrong here? Hint: it's not me.

sigh...we keep doing this don't we

Ernie?  I don't really care if you've got Gary on the ouiji board, nor what Old Geezer is squawking about.  I care what the rules in the book say.

Anyhow, Weapon speed applies pretty quickly and easily across uniformly equipped units and segments are really just initiative points.

But you can't really pick up a handfull of d10s and generate meaningful d% rolls and RQ doesn't have hit points that allow instant death from a single die roll.  You could use Con / 4 or something though.  But D&D can do it out of the book with minimal modification.

Also, RQ doesn't have morale rules.  Functional morale rules written by a wargamer.

Quote from: David Johansen;687926sigh...we keep doing this don't we

You keep doing this, yes.

Perhaps...It's the only redeeming feature I can see in D&D's mechanics so I tend to focus on it.  Besides, I see WotC as the company in the best position to kick the living shit out of Games Workshop's market domination and it's a thing I'd really like to see.

On the other hand, sand tables are hard on paint jobs.  I like flocked modular scenery better myself.

Quote from: David Johansen;687921Roll initiative for sides, Roll d20 per 0HD combatant, roll damage for number of hits.  Remove casualties.

Verses

Roll d% to hit this must be done individually and sequentially based on strike rank or dex, check for fumble, special or critical success, roll damage, apply critical or special effect or roll for fumble effect, subtract armor from damage, roll hit location, check hit location effects.  Start on the next guy's attack.

yeah, whatever Ben...

I know you hate to admit that D&D's wargame roots have their uses, but I've run battles with hundreds of figures on the table using Castles and Crusades.  And it doesn't slow down much at all.  Though I tend to reduce all damages to single dice and give half HD hp to all 1 and 0 HD combatants.

I don't understand why this is even a relevant part of the conversation.

Why would you want to?   Rq is an example of a rule set you move to when your are moving down the continuum away from abstraction towards emulation.


Looking back, I think david has the right of this....love you, Ben, but this the war gaming side is closer to the abstraction side....and dee n dee.

I think you could pretty easily take the d6 miniatures rules (originally written for WEG Star Wars) and substitute d10's for d6's without much fuss.

Quote from: David Johansen;687918Though RQ lacks D&D's ability to manage large tactical battles.  It gets too fiddly.

Binomial Distribution is your friend.

Math that gives you the odds of X folks making a roll with Y chance of success.

As far as the abstraction goes, D&D will translate more readily into a large scale battlefield than RuneQuest, yes.

What I was saying was that the actual difference (as in, mathematical difference, the space in easiness separating the two, not the unlikeness between the two) will vary, and some will find that RQ isn't noticeably harder from that standpoint. Since for mass combat in D&D I would actually use Chaimail, reverse-engineering the Perrin Conventions (maybe plugged onto a simplified larger-scaled RQ mechanic, or onto a retooled, smaller-scaled White Bear Red Moon) to act in a similar way towards RQ wouldn't be that much more trouble, from my standpoint.

I'm talking particular standpoints and groups, and I'm being bludgeoned with "but you're wrong because OBJECTIVE TRUTH!" Fuck that noise, honestly.

Not to mention, the combat scale was actually not what I had in mind when saying that, like D&D could be played as a tactical/strategic game, likewise RuneQuest. What I was originally talking about was planning, resource management, exploration, combat engagements, etc, all at the party's scale. You know: strategy and tactics.

Quote from: David Johansen;687926nor what Old Geezer is squawking about.

* pees on David Johansen's boot *

If you want to fight mass battles, why not just use CHAINMAIL or even SWORDS AND SPELLS?

I mean, if you think back engineering an RPG to mass battles is fun, knock yourself out, but miniatures rules, including fantasy, are almost as thick on the ground as fantasy heartbreaker RPGs.

Quote from: Old Geezer;688015* pees on David Johansen's boot *

If you want to fight mass battles, why not just use CHAINMAIL or even SWORDS AND SPELLS?

I mean, if you think back engineering an RPG to mass battles is fun, knock yourself out, but miniatures rules, including fantasy, are almost as thick on the ground as fantasy heartbreaker RPGs.

And Glorantha is soon going to get its own.

Quote from: David Johansen;687926But you can't really pick up a handfull of d10s and generate meaningful d% rolls and RQ doesn't have hit points that allow instant death from a single die roll.  You could use Con / 4 or something though.  But D&D can do it out of the book with minimal modification.

You might want to look at the latest versions of RuneQuest before making sweeping statements like that.

Why is any multiple d100 roll any different from a d10 or d20 roll? If you are basing it on mixing up the paired dice, then just group the d100's of the same colour. If you have some sort of visual problem with grouping separated dice together then just round the skill value of the figure/unit to the nearest 5% and use d20's instead like they do in Bushido. No problem.

Aside from RQ being fundamentally designed to permit incapacitation or instant death in one blow (and unlike D&D not increasing HPs for higher level/more experienced troops); the RAW of the latest versions in fact include rules for Rabble and Underlings which allow them to be neutralised even easier with a single blow, with no modifications required at all.

QuoteAlso, RQ doesn't have morale rules.  Functional morale rules written by a wargamer.

Again, the latest versions include morale rules for Rabble & Underlings, and there's even a combat special effect which can cause opponents to surrender. Using the RAW you can even make saving throws for a unit versus magic or intimidating creatures a single group roll, further reducing unnecessary dice rolling.

So whilst RuneQuest doesn't incorporate comprehensive mass battle rules (why use an RPG to run a large scale wargame after all), it does most certainly have rules to make running D&D style, larger scale combats much, much faster with minimal overhead.

Quote from: David Johansen;687918Though RQ lacks D&D's ability to manage large tactical battles.  It gets too fiddly.

The Mongoose version of Monster Coliseum has mass combat rules using RQ, but complaining it isn't a wargame does seem to be a non sequitur.