Fantastic Frontiers: Dice That Tell Stories

One of the appealing features of Avalon Hill's Magic Realm is that the combat system is based entirely on descriptive combat maneuver choices. In the basic game, there aren't any combat dice rolls beyond the ones that set enemy tactical choices. Instead, combat is just a mechanical implementation of different combat maneuvers that you select (or for foes, that the dice select). This makes it easy to have a battle that reads like a journalistic description of what really happened: "The dwarf ducked, and the thrust from the lancer's spear was too slow to intercept him, and then the giant crushed him with a club, but the helm shattered and absorbed the blow..." This is the actual description you'd give someone even standing outside the game universe, in contrast to a more abstract system where you'd say "I rolled an 11, which was sufficient to hit against an armor class of 13, and then I rolled a 5 on my damage."

Most wargames can't avoid the necessity of dice, and this means that to add this kind of flavor, the dice need to make a choice for you that translates into some interesting explanation for why you won or lost. The morale box system involves some extra work beyond just tallying all attack factors and rolling on an odds table, but it provides the benefit of both telling a story and creating some interesting tactical choices in combat. Let's walk through a full example of a complicated battle with lots of different troop types on each side, for the sake of explaining how everything works. This will take a while, but it's as useful for me as for anyone reading this!

Here's the scenario, which this time will be in a fantasy world. A team of explorers headed by a wizard (5th level mage) with two loyal companions (both 3rd level fighters) encounters a warband of orcs, trolls, and ogres. After some checks for details like surprise, reaction, and evasion, it looks like the monstrous raiders have decided to attack. This sets up the following order of battle:

• Expedition forces defending
• 5th level mage
• 3rd level fighter (7 armor, +1 charisma bonus)
• 3rd level fighter (9 armor, -1 charisma penalty)
• 18 light footmen (leather/shield, 3 armor, 8 morale)
• 4 heavy footmen (chain/shield, 5 armor, 8 morale)
• 3 light horsemen (leather, 2 armor, 9 morale)
• 2 heavy horsemen (plate, 6 armor, 10 morale)
• 6 crossbowmen (chain, 4 armor, 8 morale)
• 2 longbowmen (chain, 4 armor, 9 morale)
• 8 noncombat hirelings (scouts, porters, etc) that need to be defended
• Humanoid forces attacking 
• 1 orc warlord (+2 charisma bonus when leading orcs)
• 90 orcs (4 armor, 6 morale)
• 2 ogres (4 hits, 5 armor, 10 morale)
• 4 trolls (6 hits, 6 armor, 10 morale)

These values for armor and morale are taken from the 1991 Rules Cyclopedia (after flipping to ascending armor values), as an example of how it's pretty easy to just grab monsters for an encounter table from any standard d20 RPG monster collection.

Here's a list of the sequence of play for this battle

1. Determine combat scale
2. Populate morale boxes (first defender, then attacker)
3. Roll 3d6 for tactical advantage
4. Fire missile barrages, and apply casualties
5. Fire artillery barrages, and apply casualties
6. Roll a 2d6 morale check to determine which forces are included
7. Apply melee casualties for each side based on included attackers

 

1. Scale

First, let's determine the size of each side. There are 46 combatants on the human side, and 97 for the monsters. But we might want to adjust a bit for some of the larger combatants. The ogres and trolls are about twice the size of an orc, so let's count them double and add another 6 to get 103.

The scale is determined by the smaller size, which creates the limitation on how many combatants can be in direct contact at once. The size of a single "unit" (really, more like a front rank of the formation) will be based on this smaller size. Let's assume the size of this unit is 20% of total size, or 2*46/10 = 9.2, rounding off to 9.  The fact that the monsters have a 2-to-1 advantage should count for something too. Let's take the size ratio (103/46)=2.2, and say that this provides an extra bonus of 2 to scale, to represent the ability of the larger force to wrap around the corners of the smaller force and get in a few extra attacks. This bonus is small here, but if one side outnumbered the other by 10-to-1 -- or 50-to-1(!) -- it could become much more important.

The scale for this battle will be 9+2=11. That means that the footmen and orcs, at minimum, will not all be able to attack at once because they must be organized in deeper formations with multiple ranks.

Formula: scale = (20% of smaller size) + (size ratio)

This is also the appropriate time for the mage to announce that he's going to cast a fireball spell, and for all the ranged units to announce that they're going to participate and spend ammunition. (If ammunition was missing, they'd still be available to fight in melee using daggers and such, but couldn't barrage.)

 

2. Morale boxes

Now we need to start to deploy forces onto the battleboard. The defenders go first. Each morale box can contain 3 types of troop: assault, infantry, and ranged. Assault troops are anything that can rush, flank, or break through a line, such as cavalry or large monsters. Ranged units are anything that can launch or throw projectiles. Infantry are anything else.

Each box can only contain one troop type from each of the three categories. Units can't go in a box higher than their morale, but might be forced into a lower box if the higher one is already occupied by something of the same category. All the assault and ranged troops are already in groups smaller than the scale, so they don't need to be broken down. The heavy horse can go into the 10-box, the light horse into the 9 box, the longbows into the 9 box, and the crossbows into the 8-box.

The infantry pose a greater problem. The 18 light footmen will need to break into two groups, one of 11 and one of 7. And both of those groups, along with the heavy footmen, are all in competition for the 8-box. The 11 light footmen would inflict the most damage, but the 4 heavy footmen would absorb damage more efficiently. Anticipating that the deaths of the ogres and trolls will substantially weaken the enemy forces, let's just try to kill them all off and put the 11 light footmen in the 8-box, the other 7 in the 7-box, and the heavy footmen in the 6-box.

Now we'll position leaders. Note that one of the fighters provides a +1 charisma bonus to morale. Adding this leader to the 11 light footmen will pull them one box higher. The other fighter has a -1 penalty. We could put him with the other fighter, so they'd both cancel out and the light footmen would stay in the 8-box. But look at they heavy horsemen! They're all alone in the 10-box, which seems a little risky. A roll of 11+ will include only them (in shaken condition), and they would fare poorly against a horde of orcs. Instead, let's put them under the command of the low-charisma fighter (assuming he has a horse of his own to ride). Now they have an effective charisma of 9. But that's fine, since it looks like a better idea to drop them back to the 8-box, to cover those 6 lonely crossbowmen left behind when the footmen moved up.

The mage is going to launch a Fireball. That's only safe if he's standing in front, since fireballs can't launch over friendly troops like a physical projectile. So he'll stand with the longbowmen in the 9-box. This is risky, since if only this box is included, his neck is on the line. But at least the front fighter is covering him.

Note that I'm not counting the leaders against the scale limit of 11. This is a special perk of leaders, which allows them to effectively stack together and eventually make an incredibly powerful strike force that can stand in front of the army and knock out deadly enemies like dragons that only a team of heroes can reasonably handle!

Here's what the defenders look like. Note that this is a pretty complicated army, and there's no reason why you couldn't use a simpler one, with only one troop type for each category. It's helpful to be balanced in all three categories, though, as von Clausewitz can explain.

As usual, I'm stealing the War of the Rings figures to use as leaders.

For the monsters, the choices are simpler. The trolls will take the 10-box. The ogres can't be in the same box as the trolls (both are assault type troops) so they fall back into the 9-box. It could be the other way around, but the trolls will hold out better against barrage attacks. The orcs will break down into groups of 11, and the leader will boost one of those groups up to morale 8. The others will start in box 6, and go down to 2. Note that there are 4 orcs left over, which have no chance to participate and get stuck in the reserve box for the whole battle to serve as spectators.

I'd like a larger battle board, so I can place minis for all the armies beside their numbers.

This set-up for the monsters is a bit risky, since there's some chance that the trolls and ogres will be caught by themselves without orcish support, if the orcs decide to hold back and just watch during the first round. It would be safer to move at least one of these groups down into the same box as the orcs. But trolls aren't known for caution, so let's leave them there.

 

3. Tactical Advantage

We roll 3d6 for the expedition. The result is a 13. That's good for a +1 advantage to the defenders, which translates into a -1 disadvantage for the orcs. This will be relevant when casualties are applied.

 

4. Missile Barrage

Now things turn hot. The 2 longbowmen and the 6 crossbowmen are going to try to fire at the lead enemy troops, which in this case are trolls. After deducting 8 units of ammunition from the expedition supplies, there are 8 attacks to be applied. Adding the trolls armor (6) to their disadvantage (-1) gives a conversion rate of 5. So the trolls suffer one wound. (It would take a full 10 attacks to create a second wound.) Bear in mind that each troll takes 6 wounds to kill! This is barely a scratch, given the toughness of troll hide.

 

5. Artillery Barrage

The mage here is the ace in the hole for the expedition. He's the "artillery" of a fantasy world. His fireball is at the 5th level, so it's going to do the equivalent of 5 attacks on each target. (Each point of damage represents a "hit dice" in RPG terms.) It's also going to hit up to 5 targets, which in this case just means all 4 of those trolls. Best of all, armor doesn't help against arcane fire. So the disadvantage of -1 simply implies that each troll takes 5 hits of damage, converting attacks to damage 1-to-1. One troll dies outright, thanks to the archers, and the others are in rough shape with one hit each.

 

6. Morale Check

Each side rolls 2d6 to see which troops are included. I roll an 8 for the expedition, which means that the 8- and 9-boxes are included. That's most of the army. The troops in the 6- and 7-boxes are shaken, which means they'll hold back from fighting, and they'll flee if a higher box containing the same troop type (infantry) is wiped out. That means that the expedition forces have 3+2+11+2 = 18 attack factors from their troops. (Crossbowmen can't attack, since they're reloading their crossbows and have no melee capability). The leaders also add another 3+3+1 = 7. The wizard can cast some additional spells using a spell point system (which I'll figure out later) to add additional random attacks. For now, let's just suppose he spends 10 points to roll 1d20, and gets a 14. The total is 18+7+14=39 attack factors to apply against the monsters.

The monsters roll a 4 (egads!) which means the expedition is probably in trouble. That's going to include nearly all of those orcs, except the 2- and 3-boxes and the reserves. That's 44 orcs plus their captain, for 45 attacks. Then the 3 surviving trolls will each add 6 (reflecting their superior hit dice), for a total of 18. Finally, the 2 ogres each add 4 (their hit dice) for a total of 8. The overall result is 45+18+8=71 attacks against the expedition.

 

7. Melee Casualties

Let's see what happens to the monsters, first. We start in the highest box, and work down. Assault troops die first, then infantry, and finally ranged. Killing all three of the nearly-dead trolls will take 3x5 hits, or 15 hits out of the 39 total, with 24 remaining. The trolls are down. Next up are the ogres. They have armor 4, so it takes 4-1=3 attacks to cause one wound. The remaining 24 attacks create 8 wounds, which is just enough to kill both of the 4 HD ogres. Only the orcs are left.

Casualties are simultaneous, so the 71 attacks are still going to hit the expedition. First up are the assault troops in the 9 box, those 3 light horsemen. The cavalry have armor 2, and with the +1 advantage, it will take 3 attacks to drop them. They go down, at a cost of 9 attacks, leaving 62.

Next up are the 11 light footmen. They have armor 3, so it will take 3+1=4 attacks to kill each of them. They go down for 44 hits, leaving 18 still remaining.

Their captain is that 3rd level fighter with the 7 armor. It takes 7+1=8 attacks to cause him one wound, so he takes 2 wounds for 16 attacks, and the final 2 attacks are wasted. He's still holding on, with 1 hit.

The more compact expedition forces still have the upper hand, unless the orcs roll well again.

At this point the expedition can either continue the fight for another full round, or flee. If fighting continues, the remaining armies can be shifted around into new boxes, presumably with the wounded fighter being moved to the back ranks where he'll be safer. Any attempted escape will require a check on the pursuit-and-evasion table.

 

Assessment

This went roughly for the expedition, but the wizard and his fighter companions are still alive due to the prudent decision to move the light infantry up into the 9-box, to cover the wizard. Having the wizard that far forward was pretty risky, but with the trolls dead, it's now quite possible for the remaining expedition forces to beat back the orcs. Most of the orcs are in low boxes, and the roll of 4 might have been a lucky fluke that won't be repeated.

For sake of comparison, let's think about what would have happened if the monsters had rolled an 11 instead of a 4. Then none of them would have been included, and all the monsters would have been "shaken". The expedition forces would just get to pick any number of boxes (starting from the high end) to attack, and would probably have only included the trolls. The trolls would counterattack out of necessity -- but only at half-strength, since being "shaken" effectively halves that box's attack value. After half the trolls (2, in this case) were killed, the others would have run away, since being shaken also has this effect. And once the trolls ran off, the ogres below them would also have run off, since they're shaken and they're weaker than the trolls (only 8 attack value, versus 24)! But now the orc-filled boxes have no one in front of them, and they're weaker than the trolls too! The entire battle would have become a complete rout, and the trolls would have inflicted minimal damage of 12, just enough to drop the front group of 3 cavalry. Totally different battle!

Alternatively, suppose that the expedition forces had rolled a 10 or something. Now the crossbows aren't included, which means the first troll doesn't take a hit, which means that all four trolls reach melee. That means that the fighter suffers an extra 8 attacks, and dies. It also means that the expedition does much less damage, and most of the ogres are still facing them. In an absolute worst-case scenario, if the two lowest orc-boxes were also included, the entire 9-box might have been crushed, including the wizard. Putting a fragile spellcaster so close to the front of the line is risky, and a more cautious player might have skipped the Fireball option entirely -- but then those four armored trolls are like an iron wall! Decisions, decisions.

You can see how this kind of system doesn't just give the result of the battle, but also explains why that result occurred. The dice tell a story. In this case, it's a story about how the expedition was suddenly rushed by a shock force of trolls and ogres, and only their front line was able to form up and present a defense. They just barely managed to beat down the rampaging monsters with the help of some powerful pyrotechnics. But as they were weakened, secondary waves of orcs began picking off stragglers in the confusion. A hero was badly wounded, and his entire squad was wiped out to the last man! They stopped just short of reaching a wizard, who conjured powerful magic to force them to fall back.

This is intentionally a complicated battle, and most real battles in the FF system would be much simpler, more along the lines of "you have 2-3 troop types, and a half-dozen wyverns attack you". That would take much less set-up, although there are still a few strategic decisions that would be commonplace, such as whether to send cavalry far out in front, where it might die alone, or whether to keep all your forces in tighter formation, at the risk of eroding your army's morale by excessive caution.

Despite the lengthy explanation, this entire battle would take about 10 minutes to resolve, with five minutes to do the positioning in boxes, and most of the rest to do the necessary math for casualties. I didn't need a calculator at any point, just scratch paper, but one might be handy for the division involved in calculating the odds ratio bonus to the scale.

 

One final thought

This system makes armor very powerful, even small amounts of armor. Just a single shield can effectively make an infantryman twice as hard to kill. That's rather different in feel from an RPG system, where leather armor is usually in the "why even bother?" category. If you wanted to recover the same results as a detailed RPG battle, it would probably be better to scale back the value of armor, and divide everything by 2. For example, it might take a (2+2)/2 = 4 / 2 = 2 result just to get even a 2-to-1 ratio, which means that leather armor would be worthless without a 3d6 tactical advantage of at least +2 -- pretty rare! This would make combat more like an RPG, but also less able to describe the extreme case of something like the Conquistadors' absolute dominance over Mesoamerican technology.

Personally, I rather like the idea of having low-end armor varieties feel more useful, so I regard this as a feature and not a bug. It seems to me that the 1 point of armor supposedly provided by a shield should be more like something that doubles the survivability of an unarmored soldier, as opposed to something that just makes his chances of being hit slide from 50% to 45% like a d20 to-hit system would suggest. But your mileage may vary!