How do you handle massive combats? Where a small party of PC's face off against the Orc horde? Where the team of Shadowrunners have to shoot it out with the corporate security goons, who just have happen to have dozens of drones on their side?

So what tips do you gurus have for me? What do i ignore? What's important? What are your experiences?

Depends on the system.

In Reign facing off against the horde is part of the rules, Feng Shui has mook rules, same with Exalted.  In Shadowrun there are no real mass combat rules so you basically have to decide as a GM if you want the PC's to die or not.  If you don't want them to die, then you are at some point just going to let them win or not.  

For some tips in a game that's not really about the players facing the horde.  Try and set it so that the players have a good defensible position and the horde is attacking in waves,  the players defeat the wave, the next batch rolls in.  Keep the waves small enough so that it's easy to manage on your side of the number crunching.  Then you either decide ahead of time 100 bad guys or you keep sending bad guys until you've gotten the players damaged enough to prove some point.

Some games, you can run a horde as a single 'creature'.

If I plan hordes as foes as a strong part of the campaign, then I go with Savage Worlds or 4e where we can get all minis crazy and mosh it out across the battlefield.   Mook rules are the key.

IIRC Waste World had a fun mook rule where anything could become a mook by reducing the HP to 1 point.  

In other games, the arrival of hordes is the cue for the heroes to run.

In my systems, its unlikely the PCs can survive 3:1 odds without substantial preparations (dug in, etc.), and 2:1 are very risky, so the PCs versus a horde equals TPK.

I have run scenarios where the PCs organize, train, equip, and lead forces of NPCs against large groups of enemy, and after trying quite a few systems I find Iron Crown's HARP system for mass battles to be manageable and still deliver enough color to be fun. White board or minis would be required.

Geez, you might as well have asked "how do you guys handle skill checks?".  I mean, your question is pretty fucking generalized.

Fighting mass combat in Amber is going to be very different from fighting mass combat in D&D.

And what you're describing sounds more like a "skirmish" or big personal fight, than what most people think of with the words "mass combat", which they usually associate with a huge battle between armies.

RPGPundit

Quote from: Narf the Mouse;274612Some games, you can run a horde as a single 'creature'.

I think this is what we're looking at doing: finding a way to take, say, 30 instances of a given creature and treat them as a single entity for the purposes of combat resolution. We've developed some shorthands over the years - if Paul has 10 orcs attacking, all the orcs will get the same initiative, for instance, although they'll all roll to hit separately.

Quote from: RPGPundit;274873Geez, you might as well have asked "how do you guys handle skill checks?".  I mean, your question is pretty fucking generalized.

For the purposes of the thread, I don't think it matters which system you've found a solution for, just share the solution; the problem is similar across different games, and while the solution may not be, it might at least spur an idea. [For instance, "Treat the horde as a single creature," is not specific to a system, but is a very useful answer!] If, of course, the solution would somehow be unique to that system, or might need alterations to fit some other system, that's worth pointing out.

Right now, the system we're using is D&D 3.5e, but we're looking for solutions for Earthdawn and Shadowrun, as well. Still, as I say, specific solutions for specific problems aren't necessary [although they'd be welcome!]; any solution you've found, for any game, would be helpful.

Quote from: RPGPundit;274873And what you're describing sounds more like a "skirmish" or big personal fight, than what most people think of with the words "mass combat", which they usually associate with a huge battle between armies.

By and large, the issue that comes up is a small party [the characters] versus large hordes of whatever; however, we've also had difficulties with large groups engaging each other. Whatever you choose to call either event matters little except for conversational convenience.

Thanks for your very helpful clarifying questions, Pundit. It's always good to see someone reaching out and doing their best to help another roleplayer with a problem. Oh, I know you didn't ask any questions, and you spent your whole post complaining about the question rather than trying to answer it, but it gave me a chance to clarify Paul's question, anyway, even if you didn't really go about it in what could be considered a constructive fashion. Getting better, though!

HARP sounds exactly what you are describing: you combine groups of creatures (similar arms, armor, and skill make it easier) into sections, and treat the section as a single creature. That way there are no additional rules to learn.