I wish I could run really large battles in SR, HOW DO LARGE BATTLE!???!!!!!! Options

[Wounded Ronin]

Today, I wrote up some thoughts on my large battle experience in a computer game: http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?show...50&#entry448908

These thoughts made me realize how much I wish it were practical to run large battles in Shadowrun with maybe 40 combatants being the typical amount that attack the PCs. Firstly, on a personal level, I think they're far more dramatic and thrilling than battles with only a few entities. Secondly, I think it would accentuate how the characters are supposed to be a small team of freelance mercenaries in a world of large paramilitary organizations. A lot of GMs complain about munchkinism or the PCs doing things that are ridiculously powerful. That's fair enough, but if the PCs often were running up against 40 decent enemies (not necessarily non-wired-reflex stooges, even), that would kind of undermine the extent to which a PC could be overpowered. Maybe in a samurai movie style vengeful last stand, the "regular" character could kill only 5 guys and the "munchkin" could kill 10, but if the amount of enemies coming at the PCs is absolutely huge it dosen't matter too much at the end of the day because both the "regular" guy and the "munchkin" still have to focus on accomplishing their objective ASAP and then withdrawing. And that's how it should be, isn't it? After all, the PCs are supposed to be a small special forces team and no matter how good they are the name of the game should be get in and get out before the enemies pin you down with artillery, snipers, and endless hoardes.

The problem is that as a human I can only keep so many entities in my RAM before I begin to forget how many boxes of damage soldier #27 has and how many rounds #7 is still carrying. Also, since I used to play over IRC doing all those dice rolls and reporting the result in the channel would be very slow and generally running combats could take hours.

Nevertheless, if there were some way of running games in which the PCs basically have to do something while 40 guys are trying to attack them, I think that would allow for a truly extraordinary gaming experience. I wonder if there's some way of doing that. Using minatures might work, or I wonder if it would be possible to write a C application or something that you could use to prepare large battles, do dice rolls for pre-defined opponents, and keep track of everyone's stats.

[SL James]

Yes, it is an extraordinary experience. Problem is, I've only seen it attempted and done once. But that was nothing short of amazing at the end to see the list of dice rolls and the condition monitors in varied states.

IRC or Tabletop is not a good place to do this, though, for exactly the reasons WR described. It takes a lot of good record-keeping, and a lot of time and patience to roll everything out. Wading through hundreds of dice rolls sucks. Wading through someone else's hundreds of dice rolls is a good way to provoke murder.

The worst part is that it was against shedim, which are the most obvious opponents you'd want to use in this sort of scenario. But it just takes so much damn time with 40, let alone 200.

[odei]

Does the micro-managing really add to the atmosphere of what is just a vain struggle? If my players got deservedly overwhelmed, I would let them take a few parting shots and then role-play the inevitable. Rolling dice for 40+ guards would suck all the drama out IMO.

[Wounded Ronin]

[Kagetenshi]

Laptop and some appropriate software. If I end up writing anything like this (and I might end up having to soon), I'll post a copy.

~J

[odei]

I'm just saying that approximating the results can be just as satisfying as micro-managing every detail. Think of what little combat pool the runners have to dodge and the massive combat pool the enemies have to attack with, despite modifers for cover. Spending exhorbant amounts of time over the rules is either enjoyable or it's not. And if it's not, then approximate.

[hyzmarca]

Battlemats and similar scale maps and properly labeled representations of every character are important. If you have everything labeled and all of the character sheets premade, either on a computer or physically, it should be possible, albeit time consuming, to keep track of every NPC. The real challenge then becomes playing the NPCs realisticly.

[SL James]

Micromanaging did work quite well, actually. Of course, the runners weren't alone, which made the combat that much more difficult to track. But saying that the result is X based on an arbitrary value is a disservice, especially since the only way they survived was judicious use of resources and combat modifiers like terrain and cover.

[Crusher Bob]

I would guess that a tactical system map running in 'edit mode' (JA2, Silent Storn, Xcom, something like that) with both the soldiers and the PCs as moveable pieces would work best. A battlemat would quickly get too crowded and confused with movement re-writes, etc. A complex mini setup might work as well, but then you have to deal with physically moving 30+ minis around all the time.

Any software that is just a 3Dmap editor out? With the ability to place game pieces on it?

[nezumi]

There are a few tricks I imagine would be useful (most of which I'm guessing you've already thought of, unfortunately):

1) Don't bother with actions like reloading. To make up for all the general actions they'd have to do to keep firing, simply subtract one or two from each NPC's reaction and 'average it out'.

2) I'd tend not to bother to record anything but the first light wound for each character, just for simplicity. Related to this, I would have them stop fighting when they go past Serious. Say it's because of their professional rating or whatnot, but once they have a +3 modifier to every action, they're generally pretty useless anyway.

3) Of course, make all of their gear the same as much as possible.

4) Don't bother with karma pool. Make CP low across the board (increase their average skill to compensate if you want). Use it all in one go rather than splitting (so you only have to remember if each guy has used CP or not, not how many dice), and decide in advance under what circumstances they'll be using it.

5) Put them in groups that each uses the same initiative (or a spread around a shared initiative role, so you roll 3 dice for the group and guy A gets +10, B gets +8, C gets +6, etc.) rather than roll initiative for each character.

6) Get your players drunk before play or distribute porn among your GM tools, so they don't notice how long you are taking.

[Thanee]

Teamwork rules (so these 5 guys are shooting at the runner, resolve the attacks together as one attack) and 4:1 (or even 3:1 going by the average here) dice:hit trade-in (so each of the 5 guys has 8 dice, so 4 of them add 2 teamwork dice (the 2 'bought' hits from their test) each for a total of 16 dice, means an attack with 4 hits coming from those 5 together) for the goons could come in handy. It's a bit of an approximation, of course.

Reduce their condition monitors to two steps. Wounded and incapacitated. An average attack (burst, average spell) will wound them, a second one will incapacitate them, a big attack (full auto, high force spell) will incapacitate them immediately. You only need to memo one number, how many of them are wounded.

Bye
Thanee

[Butterblume]

The grunt rules from SR4 are a good starting point.

Damn, now I really want to do a big battle.

[mfb]

[Kagetenshi]

It's the "keeping it updated" part that's where the slowdown is—the big savings is stuff like automated initiative rolling for all of the mooks.

~J

[mfb]

true. for those cro-magnons out there who still use actual dic--er, that is, those luddite holdouts who sti--er, that is, those technology-fearing throwbacks who... crap, i give up!

[hobgoblin]

[Kagetenshi]

Because then you don't get a real result. At least as far as I'm concerned, the goal is to not compromise and break the rules to give all the mooks the same initiative—which can be important, as it can mean the difference between five people acting, then a character acting, then three people acting, then another character, and then two more people and a character acting, then ten people all acting at once, then another character (if still alive) acting.

IMO, this is exactly the kind of place where rules must be strictly adhered to, not discarded for faster but different approaches.

Edit: and yes, this is all SR3.

~J

[hobgoblin]

hmm, yes. you got yourself a point there about 10 people at ones equals a dead runner.

well i guess "problems" are unavoidable as long as one insist on tracking each grunt as a individual ;)

this because adding just one extra grunt squares the workload or something like that...

[Butterblume]

[Thanee]

[Kagetenshi]

The first five could. The last two could not, unless everyone waited until after the second character had acted—which is different from the situation I gave above. Plus, that requires coordination—the one-init-score method results in that same level of coordination from a swarm of devil rats.

~J

[JRDobbs]

As a quick aside, On the Run, the new SR4 module, really highlights the problem of running large battles. The module contains no fewer than two combats in which more than 10 opponents are expected to be involved. Sure, that's not 30-40+ minis on the battlefield, but it's still more than your average runner team vs. two door gaurds conflicts.

My advice--tables of pre-rolled dice.

[Shrike30]

Minis are actually a really ridiculously easy way to handle "where is everything in the combat?" if you don't mind drawing random crap on a whiteboard or a table with a few physreps tossed onto it. Get a tape measure that's got both inches and centimeters, so you can swap between scales easily. Movement rates convert over into physical measurements pretty easily, range is dead simple to figure, everyone knows where everything is... combine this with an autoroller program (or a group of folks who've gotten used to it and don't have to re-pick-up-and-count-out their dice every time they get shot at) and you've got yourself a pretty speedy way to handle a lot of combatants.

[Drraagh]

Groups are probably one of the best ways to deal with combat in large groups like has been mentioned. However, one thing I would do in a case like this is figure out exactly how many people make up each group. Reason I would do that is you could consider it like the Burst or Autofire rules, calculating it based on the number of bullets that actually hit the PC.

House rules at this site has some interesting rules for Autofire and Burst Fire that makes it not an All or Nothing effect. So, perhaps something like that would speed up combat and make it more deadly.

Now, in a Custer's Last Stand sort of situation, where you've got a small group versus a large group, those rules would make it hard on the smaller group. But then that's where you bring in cover rules, vision modifiers, morale rules (I liked how D&D did that, but I don't know for certain if SR has it), and some other rules for combat to give the few a chance to survive.

Large scale battled become a good way to control your combat monster PCs (people who has like 11 ballistic armor, 12 body and 10 CP dice ). IE: Surround the monster by 10-20 gangers and they'll be able to CP some of the damage from the first couple, but their CP would die out quickly making it only body to soak the damage. And in a group of ten people surrounding someone, that makes the TNs harder to hit as well as other things. (Just think of an opposing team hiring the gang to harass the player, while their sniper just waits for his shot, firing when the player is out of CP and perhaps somewhat wounded)

[hobgoblin]