I think that the main reason why the skirmish skill is not represented in RPG's is that the players skirmish based upon their own initiative, it is very difficult to convince a player to use tactics that are below their real life ability because their character's intelligence is a 1, similarly, you cannot get a player to command a battle in a way that is greater than their own skills, should their character's intelligence be greater than their real life intelligence.
You could give them additional information, such as someone looks like their about to do x, which is equivilant to reading the battle and easy to impliment, in D&D 5e there is a skill for this called insight, based on wisdom.
Additionally skirmishes are in larger groups. The games I've played have like 5 players max on 1 side. Tho I had character who went behind front lines and was melee fighting people who shouldn't fight melee like mages and archers
"skirmish" skill tends to be a player skill more then a character skill. It's actually something that's difficult to turn off. If you see an opening as a player, your character will probably take it, unless you put actual effort into "my character's a bit of a dullard, he'd never notice that." On the flip side, you can't give a character that skill very handily if the player does not grasp the idea of tactics. It's not something that you can award a character with a score. There are certain skills that could go into it. You can use a Spot check for instance, to allow the DM to deliver such information to the player, but in general, matters of tactics tend to fall on the players side of the table rather then the characters.
I think initiative is something like this. It is about who can interrupt the opponent or forcing him to react. A skirmishing skill would also work well in a rule set that doesn't use a map. There could be rules for two fighters working as a team and covering each other's back, avoiding being surrounded by a group or protecting another character and so on. Another thing is that players like to ask questions like "What is the ork shaman doing over there?" or "Where could I hide?" and things like that during a battle. This kind of questions could be linked to some battlefield awareness skill. It could also be used to notice threats like enemies sneaking up from behind.
YenzQu yes, there are ways to apply a mechanic to this sort of thing, my point was that some people are just by nature oblivious, whereas other people are very astute.
Yes, that was my first reaction as well. Roleplaying games or small-scale tactical wargames tend to put this sort of thing in the hands of the player. Of course, it does seem a pretty vital part of larger-scale games yet it's largely absent. And, of course, there's no reason why it couldn't be implemented in RPGs as well somehow (like having to pass a skirmish roll to switch target as instructed by the player). One of the mechanics I designed for an RTS game that never actually went anywhere was automatic target-prioritization and focus-firing based on the martial skill (a high-level abstraction that also includes the ability to wield the weapon - it never occurred to me to treat them as separate skills) of the individual unit+bonuses from leadership+-morale effects so it kinda had something to this effect, but nothing to the extent of unengaged troops trying to determine where they are the most useful. Beyond this example that actually hasn't been realized, I can't think of any game that had "skirmish skill" system of any kind. Granted, I'm not really a wargaming enthusiast so I probably wouldn't know the game even if there was one.
Andrew Shanks Initiative is a tool that a tactics minded player can use, being able to act before anyone else allows you to make use of the tactical advantage that your own brain gives you, but it doesn't CONFER that advantage onto you.
AlbertTheFinal Well that's the only thing the intelligence stat gives you though, if you level up strength you do more damage and gain 1 hp with each point, level up agility and you get some more weapon proficiency points, level up charisma you'll be able to get 1 more troop max. Intelligence does not give you anything by levelling up the stat alone. Strong able Vaegir men with war bows *licks lips*
Yoriko Arran Drinking from their skulls like no tomorrow man. also 10 walking speed, run faster then a horse and bring down enemies with your two handed axe. Sweet jesus, plus the archers... No escape from this party feast Harlaus.
I think in games "Skirmish skill" is more on the part of the player rather than character, who has various skills in weapons, armor, magic etc. The player has to learn how the various enemies work and how to counteract them, whilst the character has the means to do so, this being the link between player and character
A propos the skill you're talking about here- one of the "half legends" about how Yue Jin became a general under Cao Cao (Chinese Latter Han/Three Kingdoms Era) goes like this: After the crushing defeat at Wan Castle, Cao Cao was walking around his encampment incognito, when he saw a very short solidier covered in wounds washing himself. He got interested in those wounds so he came up to the solidier and asked about each of his wounds, the solidier not only explained when he got each of them, but also what was his or the commander's mistake due to which he attained the wounds. Cao Cao asked: - How did you survive Wan Castle? - Due to luck. - Then, did those who fell did so due to lack of luck? - No, due to weakness, panic and thinking of themselves rather than of the whole army. And so Cao Cao employed the footsolidier as a general. Yeah, the chances that this actually happened are low, but not zero (Cao Cao was known for employing people of talent, even if they were his former enemies, for instance, he eventually employed Jia Xu, a strategist who's plans caused the defeat at Wan Castle),
There must be at least a grain of truth to this. Napoleon and Eisenhower both spoke to ordinary, but clearly intelligent/experienced, foot soldiers and ensured they had a direct means of communication, instead of going up the command chain. This allowed both leaders to know exactly what was happening on the ground and what soldiers needed as quickly as possible.
For the record, I have been in the 3 guys surrounded by 12 and won. Its rare, but does happen, so your point is completely valid. Sadly I have a build that makes me very easy to see on the field and not very fast at running, so I'm the guy who plans it all out and then distracts the enemy while someone faster sneaks around and stabs them from behind. Very good videos, I have been greatly entertained and have learned to think in slightly different ways from watching your videos.
This is something I explored in a D&D game several years ago. The players were made commanders in an army and when the battle began we switched to the old Chainmail rule set. We beat out the major battle until we came to the boss battles and then narrowed the focus to basically a one-on-one battle royale. Worked quite nicely as it was fun changing the scope of perspective from masses of fighters and artillery to groups and then to individual battles.
the reason there is no skirmish skill in the RPG's is because the player is expected or rather he is the one who takes the decisions, not the character, just like it is with the fact that you don't need to be a swordmaster in real life to use a sword in a RPG. In the end of the day if the players "skirmish skill" is not good enough he will end up losing his character :D so it kind of is present in the RPG's just not as a number :)
Some RPGs like GURPS have the "Tactics" skill, which among other things helps you predict the enemies next actions. In tabletop RPGs, if the player character has a good Tactics (or other equivalent) skill, the Referee can hint the best approaches the player can use against the enemies. It's up to the player if he/she will follow the hints or not, but it's still very useful for the player even if he is the one to make the final decision.
GURPS actually has two skills relevant to assessing the battlefield. Tactics is for small group engagements of a handful of soldiers. Like how you would exploit lighting or environment in a fight between a team of Burglars and a security team. The Strategy Skill is assessing unit movements, spotting weaknesses in an offensive arrangement, evaluating and managing units to exploit or leverage. Like how you would advance 30 Soldiers across a field of soldiers with javelins while minimizing losses.
I've been doing this exact thing in paintball for five years. I've been planning on getting into medieval re-enactment and larger LARPs, so thanks Lindybeige! I know my worth now! (proceeds to skip merrily into the distance.)
I agree 100% with your point. Someone can be pretty good in a brawl, but are useless in a shieldwall if they can't march in time or hold formation well enough. I've seen quite a lot of chaps focus entirely upon how to use a sword and are complete rubbish to be next to in a battle line. I don't think such a skill could really be worked into a table-top RPG really, save for perhaps having perception checks to see if the character can read what the enemy is plotting. However a player with a good tactical mind can be a great asset even if their character isn't that skilled or their rolls aren't worth a poo. A coordinated party can be quite a lot more powerful than their levels alone.
Daniel Carrier I play D&D and I modify my characters sheets to contain another skill named Hardened. It is the skill that lets you think of a tactic that would work or which guy is the weakest in a line. Things of that nature. It is the skill you get from being in a lot of fights.
Darth Giggles the 3.5 supplement Heroes of Battle covers ways of gaining tactical advantages, such as bardic knowledge, the various Knowledge skills, et cetera.
It depends on the game, but yeah, Perception + Strategics...It's not like they are generals, but if they are experienced, they'd react quickly at any manouver from the enemy. This skill also fits in a team sport, or maybe panic situations where people will storm any safe location, like Black Friday.
In other words, a tactician. Some RPGs actually have a Tactics skill, though I agree that they are few and far between. Usually the use of the skill gives the individual, or perhaps his side, a modest modifier in combat. Sometimes Leadership skill could be presumed to do the same. The 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons Warlord class couold be said to have this skill as applied through his various "powers", that improve the attacks and defence of others.
Not necessarily. While good skirmishers tend to be at least decent tacticians, due to the importance of reading the key moments and locations on the field being a primary skill they possess, someone lacking other important skirmish skills (like speed, accuracy and decent weapon ability) could still be a great tactician. A tactician is someone who is able to employ their resources to the correct locations at the correct moments. In the case of a skirmisher, that is usually themselves and/or a small squad. Such a person may be horrible when they are given a larger number of assets to control, or are expected to manage two group effectively, rather than take advantage of opportunities opened by another force.
morallyambiguousnet I'm not sure of the context of the comment, but weapon skill is relevant to a skirmisher, but not necessary for a tactician. And a higher level of skill is required for a skirmisher than someone in a line, because they are more likely to be fighting with less support. In my experience (obviously not a definitive statement) a skirmisher or group that is unable to dispatch, or at minimum evade, several people and get to his main task of disruption is of more worth in the line, or protecting your flanks close to the group.
Situational Awareness is what the modern (at least the US) military refers to this as and they attempt to instill this idea as well as it's importance at every chance they get. My personal opinion is that this focus on situational awareness coupled with very high stress situations is compounding the PTSD issues many veterans are facing. Understanding and knowing that you are home safe is easy, turning off a well tuned "hyper vigilance" is a different thing entirely.
what you describe was present in most pnp rpgs i've played, just that its called perception and is the "get out of dumb questions for free" card of the gm ;D
This skill does come up in PnP roleplaying, but it's a meta skill. If you're actually good at reading a battle and know where to shift your attention, especially as someone who heals and buffs other characters, your party will do much better. Having a number that tells everyone else that you know how to read a battle, won't do the player much good if he/she doesn't actually know how to keep themselves from getting transfixed by their own part of the battle. I feel that I am a pretty decent cleric. I know that I've saved my current DnD party's collective skins by not participating in the actual fighting nearly as much as helping those in need and ruining the day of those whose needs don't concern me. You might say that that has always been the job of the cleric, but that doesn't mean that everyone knows how to do it properly. So in conclusion, I'd say that skirmish skill has always been part of RPGs, but it's one skill that cannot exist on paper
Now, this example is not quite the same but none the less is relevant, I went paint balling one time in a forested and rough terrain area, and each team had fifteen members each, I was put on a team where the players weren't exactly athletically fit and the other team was made up of big, sporty fellas. I knew we had a slight disadvantage so I split us up into three groups of five and sent one group around the left flank under cover of trees, bushes and small hills, and another group round the right flank under cover of the same things. As the enemy team came running at us head on and guns blazing, our friends came round the back and we basically trapped them inside a triangle. and so we slowly walked towards them, going from cover to cover, firing our guns and when it was over we had only lost three people, where as the other team was obliterated. I am now always selected as commander for these kind of things and I always try to use new tactics every time so my friends can't catch on to my strategies. As for the roll play games, I've always wanted to be a commanding officer of sorts, but the game forces you into the idea that you need to be a peerless expert duelist who cuts down all in his path, when I just want to command, this is why I play games like Total War and Mount and Blade.
That would mean that only actual veterans of medieval skirmishes could play characters who are good in a skirmish. There aren't many of those about today.
Lindybeige I think the difference on players who can do that and can't do that could be seen very good in D&D4 (sure, the game was not for everybody), but with the heavy focus on the minatures and all the powers that could grand advantages beyond just the damage output, one could watch some players just approaching nevertheless everything headon while others used powers to move them or the opposition like chesspieces and thus demonstrated an awareness on battle dynamics... and since D&D4 didn't cared much about realism one didn't had to be a mediveval skirmish expert, it was the methodology of how players thought about how the fight that made the difference.
Lindybeige I played DSA ("Das Schwarze Auge") a few years ago. It's a german pen and paper (there is a PC version, but...meh...)If I remember correctly there are at least two different skills to read a fight: fight alertness, which cut the time to overview the situation in half and helps to keep the distance to the enemy at the range you prefer.Then there is "fight feeling" which buffs your movement through the battlefield.Both skills enable to switch attack actions with defence actions without announcement. Also surprise attacks are easier to block
I mean more that the character has his skills on the combat and you are the one that moves him on the battlefield getting in the best position and the sort... A bad player is always the one that makes the tactical mistakes in that regard. It's like a wargame, your troops have skills, you are the general so you don't have general skills on moving them but it depends on your choices
Ben Mad Wurst The Dark Eye (the english title of DSA) is in my opinion one of the worst RPGs there is (I really like the setting, but the game mechanics are horrible, note: I am speaking about the tabletop game, not the video game versions). Somehow the creators of DSA think that realism can be achieved with having far to complex game mechanics, the that every single fight takes like forever to play it out. Both talents you mention are nevertheless more of the fighting skill category and not don't bring any general skirmish awareness with them.
A guy who can take out 8 or 9 guys on the other team is pretty darned useful but it is useful being able to read the fight and see where groups of people are vulnerable.
This is really nice to hear since it sort of validates a lot of my opinions about simulations and games in general. In Battlefield, or a real time strategy game like Company of Heroes, it's exactly the sort of people you're talking about that make the difference. Battlefield awareness saves the day!
There is a skill in world of darkness that kinda represents this. Its called leadership, and allows one person in a group to coordinate the skirmish. Everyone following his commands will then get a bonus to initiative equivalent to his rolled successes on leadership.
I'm currently working on an RPG system for me and my friends to use (we aren't fans of D&D, it's far too clunky). Instead of having classes that define characters, the characters get to pick several abilities that define their character. This allows for greater customization, diversity, and versatility. After watching this video, I decided to create a Tactician ability. The Tactician ability essentially allows the player to predict enemy actions, or get the idea of what they are trying to accomplish next. He can then relay orders (or suggestions) to his party, granting them bonuses to their rolls as long as they are following these orders and the orders strategically correspond to the current situation. Love your videos! Thanks for the great idea, Lloyd!
Just FYI, D&D is not really clunky. It was designed to give specific roles to characters, that they might cooperate. The problem w/"smorgasbord" skill systems is you can have a great-in-theory but actually useless-to-the-group character. Compromise systems can bridge the gap, but D&D is not a lesser animal in this. It excels in being a team game. Not a game for all uses, ofc.
The tactician you're describing is useless without the men who are good at "Wielding their weapons", though. A skirmish is a team - and the best person in a skirmish is someone who's not only a good tactician, but both good with their own arms and capable of determining which person is better at what within the army. How to use each member of their party's strengths to the most effect. For example, you might have 5 amazing sprinters in a squad - using them to maybe force the enemy to give chase would be better than using them in the front of a shield wall. Equally, you might have a few huge motherfuckers - expecting them to flank the enemy when they'd be better off at the front of a shield wall makes no sense. It's about knowing who's better at what, and using them to their full advantage.
I think it works much like in a football match. Of course the ball-winning ability and the fitness of the individual players is important, but that alone doesn't make a great team. They also need tactics and combination play. One exceptional striker can't win a match on his own but a player who is coordinating the build up can make a big difference.
YenzQu Sorry - that analogy went over my head - I fuckin' hate football. >_< All I'm saying - is that a well trained army - with each individual being assigned to the task they're best at, makes for a nigh unstoppable force.
Vehementi I'm not into football either but I think it kind of needs similar skills. Maybe you like tactical shooters better. Both can only be won as a team. It is not enough to concentrate on one single opponent only. You need to be aware of the whole situation, make split second decisions, coordinate with your team-mates and maybe also give orders. And it all has to happen simultaneously wile you're fighting.
Vehementi But what makes a well trained army? Often (particularly in RPG) it's assumed to be weapons skill. But real battles aren't won on blade-skill or numbers or force, but by tactics. That's what this "skirmish skill" is about. Knowing where to be and who to hit is more important than perfect technique.
Everyone requires some basic combat skills, but his point, which really is true, is that the side wins who has the guys who are best at knowing the right time to charge so as to achieve a group advantage. There will always be a time when a poor swordsman can take out a great or middling swordsman.
Skirmish is not just about innate ability it's about training. In the Vikings we trained to skirmish in 3s. 3 guys would not charge 3 separate people but targeted one victim, the first would engage the victim from the front, the second run around behind and stab him in the back, the 3rd would act as guard ready to face off anyone who comes to the victim's aid which they would when they realised what was happening. When the victim was dead (in seconds) the guard would most likely be engaged so the process repeated on the new victim.
I'm building a Pen and Paper RPG with combat based on the concept of distinct types of combat: Ranged combat, Skirmishing skill, and Melee exchanges. It's a class-less game whereby you get good at the skills you use, so someone who skirmishes a lot will get good at it and someone who stays at ranged won't. I think the separation of Skirmishing and Melee Exchanges achieves what you described... Thanks for the inspiration! :)
Precisely my experience as well. The guys that could identify weak points, and either throw javelins well, or get around the back to take out those key pieces that were very good at using their weapons. Often, these fighters were pretty good with their weapons as well. I also found that, even in fairly confined spaces of 35 m x 35 m, good cardio could be a HUGE factor. Having someone harrying your flanks, and needing to send 2-3 people after him, and then having him run just out of reach, could pull important resources out of the battle. I'd better stop before we go too far into the stories. Lets just leave it at, with over a decade of experience fighting these types of battles several times a week, having a good flanking group is just as important as having a strong core. I really should get back into this at least to some degree; I miss it so much...
This is Thrand!!! Well said and thought out there are some good at every thing but it is true some excel better at single combat others Shield walls and formation fighting.
Can you do a video about the difference between fighting in a dual and in formations. I always hear people saying, "However in a formation everything would be totally different" but they never seem to explain what that kind of fighting looked like.
1) the skill to read the battle is a playerskill not a charskill 2) if you break it doen there are skills for most of the things (perseption, Int(strategy), (empathy maybe? for reading the opponents willpower?) and so on 3) another problem is that in most RPGs formationfighting and strategy is not that common and can (as showen in the example below) possibly lead to a TPK if not carefully balanced by the DM. my example (from a game i ran a while back): the party: a warrior, a rogue and a mage (in the system we run there are no clerics so mages do the magikal healing) they were batteling through a tower guarded by trained soldiers when the came into a corridor guarded by 3 guys with spear&shield (in a phalanx giving them +1 defence), a healing mage kneeling behind them (heeling them and getting cover from them) and 2 archers behind that. sounds simple right? yea... no. the fight tock a long time because the party had real problems taking down the spearmen because they got healed from the mage. they couldnt get to the mage prperly because he was behind the spearmen (so only the mage or the rogue coult hit but the mage was trying to keap the warri alive) and no it was not due to bad rolles on the side of the party nor had i OP rolls... and i didnt even use my original plan of sending a second group (like 2-3 gus with swords) through one of the other corridors and attacking them fromo behind
Yea, situational awareness. Been trying to get other gamers to grasp this concept for ages. It's the key component for being a useful team member and the single most important trait of a good leader in games. I am not good of a shot in FPS games, but I can process what is going on on the field quite well, which allows me to function as an effectiveness multiplier for the people I play with, which is a very fun role imo.
In Ars magika rpg, there is the Leadership skill, which determines the bonuses that character gives when leading a unit or formation of people. If a person has high LD skill, that person gives better bonuses. Although while it does provide a sort of skill representing this, the whole squad dynamic is sorta clunky in Ars magika. Plus it can very quickly get out of hand if the opposition starts flinging fireballs. I'd guess (as i saw in an earlier post) the thing is that skirmish skill isn't really relevant that often. Unless you play as a character and/or set of characters with a number of troops under their command. Perhaps a couple of armed sergeants with some spearmen at their disposal, tasked by their lord to defend a village. And the campaign focuses around that? I also think that often, dice rolls aren't the proper way to deal with some skirmishes in rpg's. When two sides are going to battle each other it's often just easiest to narrate the battle, and preferably have the players fight some boss type character/characters during the scene, or have a non-battle objective, like lowering the drawbridge or something. The actions of the characters matter, but the entire scene doesn't boil down to 50 characters with different hp (and at times different stats for every one) in a massive melee in an rpg system. I for one think that doing that in like DnD 4th ed, or Gurps or any other system basically it would just become an endless dicerolling. In some systems there is squad rules, but at times they are to simple, leading to entire units of experienced fighters just being annihilated by unreasonable opposition, just because one die-roll went a bit awry. So my way of doing it. Just narrate, the most fitting and probably most dramatic outcome will come from that, especially if the players are given or do some actions of their own to assist the fight, without standing on the front line slogging off against loads of dudes.
I agree. The awareness of battlefield and knowing where you should be and who should you be fighting at the moment is one of most important skills in modern team bohurts (like Battle of the Nations)
That skill is something players *need* to have, not their characters. What You described is basically meta knowledge. I personally allow my players to roll knowledge/intelligence checks for this sort of things (aka to get my advance of what their characters would think is a good idea) as a house rule. It's the only use I found for knowledge(fighting style) and knowledge(weapon) some systems have (I occasionally gave in-game bonuses as well)
None of this is to say that being proficient in the use of your weaponry *isn't* vitally important. It's just not *paramount*, as some might misconceive.
As mentioned elsewhere, this is usually left to the player on the "strategic" level and abstracted away at the "tactical" level, perhaps with a skill roll for some small bonus. This video did inspire in me, however, an idea for a game of D&D where Sense Motive is basically precognition (force opponent to declare next action), defended against by Bluff (if you roll well, you get to lie). It would be really easy to cheat at this, though... It would also slow the game to a crawl. The usual solution, I think, is to have opponents declare their actions simultaneously, though this puts the onus entirely on the player. All such systems would get exponentially more complicated the more people are involved too... I think then that, while very far from ideal, the dominant way of doing things is a compromise favouring speed of play.
Agreed: SM would definitely be the D&D 3e variant, at least IMO. Possibly synergized, or class-limited to use it that way. SM already had a "size up enemy" splat bk option, but more towards "could he kick my @$$?" checks.
I don't know about Role Playing Games, not my cup of tea, but any good melee mob needs a general. Someone who knows their tactics and his overall battle plan. Such a battle plan could be simply to go =====> That way and so you make a formation that allows you to advance in that direction while being in melee combat. It is generally best for this individual to not be actively engaged in physical combat himself. You can't read the situation otherwise. I don't know if you have done this or not, but if you haven't, you should try maneuvering formations. Once you see the rank and file, broken down into companies, battalions, regiments, and divisions the whole picture opens up to you. You could do this on a smaller scale by having, say, groups of five. So if you have 25 guys, you will have 5 groups of 5. Find a military Drill and Ceremony manual and march them about. You will learn how to move formations quickly, efficiently, and you teach them to respond to your voice immediately without the "Wait, huh?" factor. Then when you next do one of your skirmishes, see how well this works out. I'll bet there will be less chaos. Think of formations that would split the other team. If you make a wedge, you maintain unit integrity and split enemy forces, causing the enemy commander to have to watch both left and right as two separate units.
as many people pointed out, skirmish skill as a note on your character sheet is not really necessary in RPG's, especially when using miniatures to represent combat. it is a player skill. However, if a GM wants to make a point of it, without cooking up a new house rule, how about an awareness check (or equivalent) to spot flankers? Or to see weak spots? A player may ask a GM if he can see some kind of advantage or have a sense of how it's going beyond what's on the table (if playing with miniatures). Not everything in RPG's needs rules from a book as long as players and gm's communicate. In a RPG played without miniatures it would take more description by the GM and note-taking by players to make player's skirmish skill have an effect, but it does not need a rule per say.
I plan on perhaps one day writing a role playing game and I generally find your videos very useful as reference material, and I am very thankful. This video brings up how role playing games do not address skirmishing skill, but how would you write rules to incorporate skirmishing skills in a role playing game?
Some games use a Tactics and/or Strategy skill. How I see it used is most simply a buff skill. "+1 to hit for your side" which can be a bit boring. Other times it's an information skill, letting you read the enemy manouvers and your own. Arthurian game Pendragon has a Battle skill which simulates your knights ability to perform in large battles. Moving in them, positioning, getting overviews.
I think the skills exist, but they are rarely used in combat (empathy, perception, etc. ). Adding a 'asses opponent(s)' phase before attacks for a small variable bonus that round might be nice to simulate your point, which made me smile. I feel we often get into combat fatigue and it devolves into 'I hit enemy with weapon'. I feel there is a general lack of non-killing skills usage in combat in a lot of systems, when they can play and important role in outcome of skirmishes. We often become berserkers in mentally, trading blows and hope you hit harder and faster. With a little bit of creativity I think it can work in existing systems pretty well.
The German Roleplaying System "Das Schwarze Auge" (The Dark Eye) has a "Warfare" skill. The skill can then be modified with a specialization into "strategy" or "logistics" or "fight against monsters/dragons...etc" or indeed into "tactics". The game allows you to use an action per turn to "use skill warfare (tactics)". The amount of points you score in this action can be used to buff the initiative of other fighters in the same group. You can even destribute them at your own discretion, giving all the points to just one or two fighters, boosting them greatly. Or indeed boost everyone just a little bit (or at least until your points run out). I think this reflects very well to what you are proposing.
Legend of the Five Rings has a Mass Combat system, wherein each side has a general that rolls a contested Battle skill roll each round, and each of the players rolls a d10 + their Battle skill ranks. Certain rolls on the table give Heroic Opportunities or duels where you can give bonuses to your General's next roll or earn Glory. In regular skirmishes you get to add your Battle skill to your Initiative. (Which is actually based off reflexes and experience!)
That is also used in the L5R Role-playing game. has proved vital for my characters survival and reputation over the years. Also Traveller has tactics and recon skills, either can be used in this way, but depending on the skill used gives different results. Examples, Say you use Recon, you see what they are doing, that the opponents seem weak over there. Use tactics, you you see the weakness is intentional and meant to lure/trap you.
I wouldn't have given this a second thought, it makes perfect sense and is entirely intuitive. Situational awareness, battle sense, that's very very important. And oh, I know it's not an ideal analogue, but this is true in competitive gaming as well. One has to be aware of the overall scenario, and their standing and their team's standing in it. Otherwise it's self-interested tunnel vision. Nice video. (Roleplay games are very individualistic. More realistic games are more considerate to crowd antics.)
example 2. Final dregs of the battle - there's me and 6 opposition warriors. I run for space, the 6 pursue. I stop, turn and down the fasted one then flee for space again. repeat process (yes they really thought it would work allowing me a Hollywood ending of swift individual combats). This only worked because they had no clue how to fight together in skirmish and I was desperate (and somewhat fitter at the time).
That's why l love World of Warcraft,the mass battlegrounds (for people who love to play PvP and want to excell in it) reading and knowing what other player's classes are doing and are capable off is one of the PvP player's traits after experiencing a lot of PvP gamehours. It's easy to learn where the weak spot is, people when in a line formation will most of the time start to crack from the sides, people push harder/weaker on one side of the line so when there is a small gab you seperate them from the main line and take them out. That is pretty much the same tactic riot troops use (swat/mobilised cops)
It's a little bit how in football, the Team Captain is not always the best player in the team (and not often a striker - they tend to be midfielders or defenders), they're the guy who can read what's going on and direct their team mates in such a way as to be most effective. With respect to RPGs, it's not so much that there is no "skirmish skill" skill, it's that a lot of the qualities are divvied up under other skills - it's a suite of skills. I do think however that the rulebooks could make it clearer that skills can be used in that way. For example, players could use the Spot skill to Spot which enemies are more likely to break formation, or to notice enemies trying to out flank them. Meanwhile the players themselves can use skills like hide and move silently to outflank their opponents. Then there are rules that give attack bonuses for flanking, or leadership skills that can give your team-mates bonuses.
I think with a lot of roll playing games, the situations where there would be fights, are more like duels, and any larger battles would be determined by the decided actions of the player. I can see, however, that that skill could come in handy when implementing such moves, as flanking a line, or charging, or leading, as you mentioned.
"Game sense" is a very important skill, but overall communication and teamwork are what wins group battles. One could underatand exactly the best tactic, but unless one can organize their aide and execute it; it means very little
You are correct loyd, this is why in d20 rpgs you have a grid to move around on. This is why a good character can die if the player is bad and does something stupid. The Skirmish skill falls on you the player, based on your decisions on the grid and what you do with your actions. Dnd and roll20 games in general, when it comes to combat, are skirmish simulators. If we added a skirmish skill, there wouldn't be a need for combat to simulated on a grid. Your skirmish skill is your skill as a player.
Most common role-playing game combat is one vs 3-5; and 3-5 vs 3-5. Most fighting happens outside of the battlefield and away from any army (unless it's a goblin or other monstrous army). Because the skill comes up as often as flower arrangement skill it is often not included. But when it is included it's called "tactics" or "strategy" or something similar.
Realms of arkania (Das schwarze Auge) has that - actually in multiple forms. It has a skill for strategy which more comes into play before the actual battle and allows to see terrain that gives you an advantage in the upcoming fight, count in weather conditions, temperature, spot enemy weaknesses etc. Then there is the warfare skill that allows you to fight well in formations, spot weaknesses in the enemy line(s) do tactical movement during battle and adds to your initiative And we have the tactic skill which is more or less just for really big scale battles to move armies around and give them an advantage over the enemy, securing supply routes, surrounding an army, setting up traps etc. while there are some adventues where tactic comes in handy, they are really late game (after all you characters need to have a great reputation to be allowed to command armies) and doesnt come into effect much.
The very first skill my sword school teaches is observation - learning to read the world around you and keep your situational awareness up, and yes, it is CRUCIAL. I'm often called on to hold the center of the line, and it's a little nuts how hard it can be to fend off three people at once from even just a 45 to 90 degree arc in front of you. A command element can help, but you also need to be able to have a shred of attention in the thick of things to hear and understand that element. Skilled commanders make it easier, but it always requires some training on the individual fighter's part.
I think I have a way to simulate "skirmish skill" in a RPG, based on combat and movement instances. There's your traditional combat instances (attack, defense) and your traditional movement instance (advance, retreat, hold). So you can have a list comparing the different combinations of movement and combat (atk+adv vs def+ret = ?), something like a "rock-paper-scissors" thing. Then the "skirmish skill" would work pretty much like your "fumble rule" from the other video. It would be the abillity to change combat instances without failing. So, for exemple, if you and your opponent are in a stalemate situation (e.g. def+hold vs def+hold), based on your skirmish skill, you could risk changing to a combat instance that gives you the upper-hand, with some penalty if you fail. To add more complexity, there could be a difficulty value for changing between opposite combat instances, for exemple, if you go from advance to hold, there's less chance of fumbling than going from advance to retreat. It also seems better if there's more combat instances.
I agree with you about the skirmish skill in the role game but only works if the master wants it. In a medieval pseudo-realistic role game we need to take a small town, the town was downhill and have a lot of open space the enemies have no range weapons or spears but my friends decided to dismount the horse. When I stayed in them and divided my forces, done a fake charge to the enemy to draw their attention meanwhile my other half of the forces charged them form behind. But in the end my other friends with higher combat stats killed more enemies than me working with my forces and planing a strategy and of course they get a higher reward than I.
In Pathfinder and D&D 3/3.5, you use the "Since Motive" and "Perception" skills to determine where a formation would most likely brake. Beyond that, the player is the one who has to read the battle lines.
I play airsoft a lot The most confusing thing is the fog of war (unlike video games were many refer to, you do not have minimap with red and green dots). You are were you are and behind your sight is a world of chaos. And If players are so experienced in map awareness, communication and command they can crush mountains.
Czech paper RPG Dračí Doupě (dont even try to pronounce that) gives warrior this skill to some degree. You can guess the enemy, getting their stats and you can analyze the fight, leading your group in fights because GM (or however you call him) gives him hints depanding on how well he rolled for analyzing the fight.
Twilight 2013 has such as skill. It is called the Tactics skill. The Tactics skill allows you to "get inside an enemy's OODA loop." The OODA loop is a decision making process (Orient,Observe, Decide, & Act) that everyone uses literally millions of times a day. The skill requires a slight modification to the Initiative system of any game it is used in. This "modification" is the addition of a "Declaration Phase" in the Initiative system of the game. During this "Declaration Phase" of a round, the players state what their character's actions will be from fastest initiative to the slowest one. The slower players will gain a slight advantage in seeing "what the faster characters are up to." A character who makes a successful Tactics skill check will get to declare his action (or actions) LAST. This means that a character with the Tactics skill will know what every other combatant is going to do during the round (I also give the character a bonus of 1 to their Initiative roll in my games). This is a significant advantage in combat. The Tactics skill is modified by the character's knowledge of his opponent. -If the character knows his adversary; The Skill difficulty is EASY (2 X skill level). -If the character has knowledge of his adversary's tactics (a Roman soldier fighting a Roman trained opponent); His skill difficulty is AVERAGE (normal skill). -If the character has no experience with his adversary's tactics; His skill difficulty is DIFFICULT (1/2 skill level) or may even be worse. In a fight with two (or more) users of the Tactics skill; The character with the lowest skill roll declares last.
Well, as far as RPGs go besides being a player skill, to use 3.5e D&D as an example, the "Skirmish skill" would just be an extension of your character's Base Attack Bonus. The D&D system is all very abstract, so the Armour Class of the character being their ability both to dodge, deflect and absorb blows versus the Attack score as their opportunity to hit means that a character with high Base Attack is not just better with a sword, but also better at finding the opportune moment to strike (in any situation.)
It's generalised for any situation, probably for simplicity. I don't think most DMs run campaigns which involve real skirmishes, either... So perhaps in a game with more emphasis than that on large group conflicts I could see differentiating the two skills, but even then it opens the door for too many other modifiers people might want.
Exalted, for all of its mechanical faults, handles this fairly well. It features a separate "War" rating that's used for the player characters when they are directing troops. Troops, on the other hand, have a "Drill" rating which determines how good they are at fighting as a unit and how good they are at following orders. However, it is important to know what your game is created for. Exalted was designed to allow the player to become an all powerful demi-god-king which inevitably involves plenty of conquering and warfare along the way. Rules that simulate mass combat are very important to the game. Dungeons and Dragons is a game that was designed for dungeon crawling and shooting fireballs at skeletons. Warfare was not on the top of the list of priorities.
It is important however to not underestimate individual fighting skill as well. While reading the battlefield is very important, not everyone needs that to be their primary skill. More importantly, it is important to have a combination of both. This isn't as hard as some may think, as being good at one doesn't make you any less skilled in the other.
When I used to DM, my usual approach to this issue was to assume that the fighter characters in my group had training in arms but little or no experience in actual combat (they were all supposed to be young adventurers, after all) and let the players work those things out through experience. Sometimes, if we had a character who was supposed to be experienced, I'd have the player make perception and intelligence tests in certain situations: if successful, I'd give them some info to help them figure out things ("you realize that the enemy is pushing your group back; the NPCs on your side seem to be faltering and they might be close to breaking and running away") Stuff like that.
I think another important 'skill', if it could be considered so, in skirmishes is line discipline. The ability to maneuver the line to offset any flanking attempts is vital.
In D&D there are many rolls you can make to attempt to attain that information, usually wisdom based rolls and perception. It's all up to your DM to allow for the best possible experience for the party.
Dodge ball with no teams seems to be a good way to tell who has situational awareness and is able to sense intent. From the dodge ball games i've played, it wasn't the best throwers that were left, it was the people who knew when/where to move at the right time and were able to sense who was going to throw at them from any direction.
Two points about the (pen&paper) rpg aspect: The most popular german p&p game "Das schwarze Auge" (/"The dark eye") has rules for battle tactics and fighting in formation, but I think nearly no one ever uses them. DSA/TDE is a very complex system and there are a lot of rules most people don't use. But Why? The problem is that common groups of player consists of 3, 4, 5 or 6 players plus gamemaster. Some of their characters are perhaps not even fighters or they're not comfortable with close combat. Let's say that 6 people get attacked in a forest. One runs away, because he's a scholar without fighting skills. Another starts casting a spell, two others making their bows / crossbows ready. The 2 remaining people just can't get into a useful formation. Just back to back or something. The tactical skill of someone is just not so important in such small groups of fighters.
You're right, Lindybeige, few RPGs have a skill like that. GURPS of course has it, it's called Tactics and it's Mental/Hard (based off intelligence and costly). Barring that... maybe The Riddle of Steel... maybe. And/or The Burning Wheel. Off the top of my head. More games could surely benefit from this kind of skill (at least in a simulationist perspective).
Some systems have a "tactics" skill. or something of a kind, but it typically fails to influence combat resolut in a satisfying way because it abstracts player involement. On the other hand role-playing without any abstract gamifier is also unrealistic as it depends on how good is the GM, how good he can relate the flow of combat to the players, how well the players understand what is being related to them, etc. It is a bit like trying to command an infantry squad in a close combat via motorola from a company HQ half a mile away.
Well D&D does have more than a few classes built towards that style of play and there's always the perception skill, as vague and all-encompassing as that skill is. It's up to the players mostly to realize how best to handle a fight using proper scouting to find the enemies then to attack accordingly. Most encounters don't have the PC's fighting large formation at a time mostly due to the size of the party. Wouldn't be fitting for the GM to throw a platoon sized formation of Goblins at a low leveled party of 4 or 5 guys.
I can't claim to know a lot of different RPGs. But I know D&D 4th ed. And the Warlord class there is def what you would call a skirmish specialist - repositioning allies accros the battlefield, granting advantages to allies and disadvantages to foes, that sort of thing..
The game tabletop RPG Exalted chalks battle tactics down to an ability called War, and it's basically all this tactics from knowing how to manage and supply troops, to leadership, to group battle tactics. Whereas the 4 other major combat skills Melee, Archery, Martial Arts and Throw are more specific to hand to hand or ranged combat against individuals.
And the game Amber simplifies this further down an attribute just called Warfare. Which covers everything from tactics and troop management to skill with every and any weapon. But Amber is about playing godlike characters, so it makes more sense for it to be more general.
In the tabletop game I am developing, the unit's total Initiative value at the moment determines rate of reaction. Unlike most games where this is wrongly an inherent skill, the Initiative of a unit in this game depends on their Unit Range, which utilizes two fundamental traits to reacting quickly: Sensory and Coordination. The first allows the unit to understand what is going on as soon as possible while the second is important for the unit to get its act together once it fully realizes what’s happening. So even if you have a unit exceptionally great at close combat, they can be outdone by a group of more disciplined (if less skilled) warriors acting as a fighting unit.
If you are outnumbered the solution would be to adopt something like a schiltron formation so you can defend all sides. And hopefully have some other advantage you can make use of like better armour or skill at arms.
This reminded me of a situation where perhaps I presented this very skill, or maybe I was just lucky. During a LARP set in Witcher universe our company of Kaedwenian soldiers was retreating from an unsuccessful charge on enemy positions. While walking through the woods we were ambushed by small group of elves with bows. During the skirmish I managed to capture the leader, the fight stopped and we were able to negotiate safe pass for releasing her. We would have been all killed or captured if not for that action.
well... one bit about like "fantasy roleplaying tabletop games" is that...fights don't get to skermish level frequently. It's normally like 5 guys vs whatever and such "Macro" level skills are not as immediate. Though the martial leader classes that started showing up in various additions of dnd seem to at least have a pretend amount of knowledge about these things.
In Pathfinders Kingmaker pre-made module where you are put in charge of running a kingdom, there is mentions of a pseudo skirmish skill. The general of an army would use "Profession - Soldier" rolls agaisnt the other generals skill, and see how they compared. Who ever won that roll gave bonuses to their armies actual attacking phase. Although, a ludicrously high level player (Were talking maximum possible achievable level) could very well count as an army on their own and fight other armies by themselves, and win. Although they would still most likely die if they tried to take on a discipline and numerous army filled with sufficiently high enough level soldiers, lead by a competent general.
A skirmish skill could be something along the lines of being able to read the opponents and your own soldiers, whether they are fresh or exhausted, filled with morale or wavering. This could help you make decision regarding whether to attack or defend, in the midst of combat. Like an in-combat-perception check.
Battlefield tactics can play a big role in D&D. There are D&D classes and sub-classes that specialize in battlefield tactics. The 4e Warlord and the 5e Battlemaster come to mind. The Battlemaster fighter archtype is just what you are looking for. If you are playing a Battlemaster and you can read the field, you will consistently slay, and you won't be the party bleeder. Bleeding profusely is the role of the 5e Champion. Steer clear of that archtype. It's for chumps.
Here are a few of the things that would take. Well, you will need to alter the genetic code to create additional specific bones, then you will need to alter it to create additional musculature to move those bones, circulatory to keep the tissue alive, lymph, and then additional nervous system paths and an additional motor cortex area in the brain to control it... and different shoes likely, because most probably that would mean an additional big toe as well. So, while it would be a cool idea... hmm not likely. On the other hand, a prosthetic thumb which you wear over the arm and control in a mimic of the actual thumb by nervous system conduction. Independently controlling it would involve a computer program designed to predict what you are doing with your hands.... so still incredibly complex.
A simple way to represent this would be an additive modifier to the group, if in formation with someone with this skill. By being better, it would make having multiple people in the group, EACH having this skill far more effective --which would be somewhat accurate. So a group of mediocre fighters, each having this skirmish/tactical skill, and so each benefitting from the presence of the others, is far more effective than any of them could be alone. In my estimation, the bonus applied by this skill should probably ramp up as the character gains experience too. Such that a very experienced guy would add more to the group than a novice, even with the same skill. This would also be appropriate in stacking, as a group of battle hardened AND tactically trained veterans are a FAR more effective group than green recruits -even if those recruits have some skirmish/tactical training.
D&D 3.5 Heroes of Battle. Great book used to establish basic military and tactics based combat! Obviously, it's not perfect but that's where a good GM comes in.
Very interesting, this even leads to games like counter strike where the best person at aiming is not always the one to win (now granted, you die so quickly it can be). Knowing your area (map) and knowing how the enemy will react is key to winning higher ranked games while pure skill at aiming can only take you so far.
Not only true for combat, this also applies heavily to Team sports as well. i play floorball and our mvp is not the guy who shoots accurately and runs the fastest, but our captain/center-field player. he who reads the situation and positions himself tactically.
I think that the main reason why the skirmish skill is not represented in RPG's is that the players skirmish based upon their own initiative, it is very difficult to convince a player to use tactics that are below their real life ability because their character's intelligence is a 1, similarly, you cannot get a player to command a battle in a way that is greater than their own skills, should their character's intelligence be greater than their real life intelligence.
NetheniahScrim agreed
How is a player a player of a RPG if they don't ? I feel sorry for the sorry excuse of "Role Players" you have had to deal with in the past mate
@@AS-zt8yx Sadly being a Murderhobo is a big part of what people think of doing when "role playing".
You could give them additional information, such as someone looks like their about to do x, which is equivilant to reading the battle and easy to impliment, in D&D 5e there is a skill for this called insight, based on wisdom.
Additionally skirmishes are in larger groups. The games I've played have like 5 players max on 1 side. Tho I had character who went behind front lines and was melee fighting people who shouldn't fight melee like mages and archers
"skirmish" skill tends to be a player skill more then a character skill. It's actually something that's difficult to turn off. If you see an opening as a player, your character will probably take it, unless you put actual effort into "my character's a bit of a dullard, he'd never notice that." On the flip side, you can't give a character that skill very handily if the player does not grasp the idea of tactics. It's not something that you can award a character with a score. There are certain skills that could go into it. You can use a Spot check for instance, to allow the DM to deliver such information to the player, but in general, matters of tactics tend to fall on the players side of the table rather then the characters.
I think initiative is something like this. It is about who can interrupt the opponent or forcing him to react.
A skirmishing skill would also work well in a rule set that doesn't use a map. There could be rules for two fighters working as a team and covering each other's back, avoiding being surrounded by a group or protecting another character and so on.
Another thing is that players like to ask questions like "What is the ork shaman doing over there?" or "Where could I hide?" and things like that during a battle. This kind of questions could be linked to some battlefield awareness skill. It could also be used to notice threats like enemies sneaking up from behind.
YenzQu
yes, there are ways to apply a mechanic to this sort of thing, my point was that some people are just by nature oblivious, whereas other people are very astute.
Yes, that was my first reaction as well. Roleplaying games or small-scale tactical wargames tend to put this sort of thing in the hands of the player.
Of course, it does seem a pretty vital part of larger-scale games yet it's largely absent. And, of course, there's no reason why it couldn't be implemented in RPGs as well somehow (like having to pass a skirmish roll to switch target as instructed by the player).
One of the mechanics I designed for an RTS game that never actually went anywhere was automatic target-prioritization and focus-firing based on the martial skill (a high-level abstraction that also includes the ability to wield the weapon - it never occurred to me to treat them as separate skills) of the individual unit+bonuses from leadership+-morale effects so it kinda had something to this effect, but nothing to the extent of unengaged troops trying to determine where they are the most useful.
Beyond this example that actually hasn't been realized, I can't think of any game that had "skirmish skill" system of any kind. Granted, I'm not really a wargaming enthusiast so I probably wouldn't know the game even if there was one.
I vaguely remember Shadowrun 2nd Edition having a Small Unit Tactics skill that mainly translated to an initiative bonus.
Andrew Shanks
Initiative is a tool that a tactics minded player can use, being able to act before anyone else allows you to make use of the tactical advantage that your own brain gives you, but it doesn't CONFER that advantage onto you.
You put out a lot of videos . I like that.
Are you Khan?
Crouchy232323 Yes
Crouchy232323
All hail Khan!
***** HAIL KHAN
Crouchy232323
Have you heard Khan's latest diktat?
Lindy I got the perfect game for you, Mount & Blade Warband.
You said it.
AlbertTheFinal Yup, the tactics skill along with a buckload of skills when it comes to travelling with your party which you will do most of the time.
Yoriko Arran I found out how intelligence is crazy broken, those 2 plus skill points every lvl up really do matter. Also, vaegir's bowmen.
AlbertTheFinal Well that's the only thing the intelligence stat gives you though, if you level up strength you do more damage and gain 1 hp with each point, level up agility and you get some more weapon proficiency points, level up charisma you'll be able to get 1 more troop max. Intelligence does not give you anything by levelling up the stat alone.
Strong able Vaegir men with war bows *licks lips*
Yoriko Arran Drinking from their skulls like no tomorrow man. also 10 walking speed, run faster then a horse and bring down enemies with your two handed axe. Sweet jesus, plus the archers... No escape from this party feast Harlaus.
I think in games "Skirmish skill" is more on the part of the player rather than character, who has various skills in weapons, armor, magic etc. The player has to learn how the various enemies work and how to counteract them, whilst the character has the means to do so, this being the link between player and character
For the most part battle comes down to tactical awareness and teamwork, finally someone makes a video explaining this. Cheers
A propos the skill you're talking about here- one of the "half legends" about how Yue Jin became a general under Cao Cao (Chinese Latter Han/Three Kingdoms Era) goes like this:
After the crushing defeat at Wan Castle, Cao Cao was walking around his encampment incognito, when he saw a very short solidier covered in wounds washing himself. He got interested in those wounds so he came up to the solidier and asked about each of his wounds, the solidier not only explained when he got each of them, but also what was his or the commander's mistake due to which he attained the wounds. Cao Cao asked:
- How did you survive Wan Castle?
- Due to luck.
- Then, did those who fell did so due to lack of luck?
- No, due to weakness, panic and thinking of themselves rather than of the whole army.
And so Cao Cao employed the footsolidier as a general.
Yeah, the chances that this actually happened are low, but not zero (Cao Cao was known for employing people of talent, even if they were his former enemies, for instance, he eventually employed Jia Xu, a strategist who's plans caused the defeat at Wan Castle),
There must be at least a grain of truth to this. Napoleon and Eisenhower both spoke to ordinary, but clearly intelligent/experienced, foot soldiers and ensured they had a direct means of communication, instead of going up the command chain.
This allowed both leaders to know exactly what was happening on the ground and what soldiers needed as quickly as possible.
For the record, I have been in the 3 guys surrounded by 12 and won.
Its rare, but does happen, so your point is completely valid.
Sadly I have a build that makes me very easy to see on the field and not very fast at running, so I'm the guy who plans it all out and then distracts the enemy while someone faster sneaks around and stabs them from behind.
Very good videos, I have been greatly entertained and have learned to think in slightly different ways from watching your videos.
This is something I explored in a D&D game several years ago.
The players were made commanders in an army and when the battle began we switched to the old Chainmail rule set. We beat out the major battle until we came to the boss battles and then narrowed the focus to basically a one-on-one battle royale.
Worked quite nicely as it was fun changing the scope of perspective from masses of fighters and artillery to groups and then to individual battles.
the reason there is no skirmish skill in the RPG's is because the player is expected or rather he is the one who takes the decisions, not the character, just like it is with the fact that you don't need to be a swordmaster in real life to use a sword in a RPG. In the end of the day if the players "skirmish skill" is not good enough he will end up losing his character :D so it kind of is present in the RPG's just not as a number :)
If you really need a number for that, I'd say it may be represented with the passive perception. But your explanation is way better.
Some RPGs like GURPS have the "Tactics" skill, which among other things helps you predict the enemies next actions.
In tabletop RPGs, if the player character has a good Tactics (or other equivalent) skill, the Referee can hint the best approaches the player can use against the enemies. It's up to the player if he/she will follow the hints or not, but it's still very useful for the player even if he is the one to make the final decision.
GURPS actually has two skills relevant to assessing the battlefield. Tactics is for small group engagements of a handful of soldiers. Like how you would exploit lighting or environment in a fight between a team of Burglars and a security team. The Strategy Skill is assessing unit movements, spotting weaknesses in an offensive arrangement, evaluating and managing units to exploit or leverage. Like how you would advance 30 Soldiers across a field of soldiers with javelins while minimizing losses.
Recently I'v been binge watching Lindybeig and I'm actually running out of videos that's the point when you know you should take a break
No, there are no breaks from Lloyd that would be considered good breaks.
This doesn't need to be a statistic in RPG's, because this is just a skill that the players themselves develop.
I've been doing this exact thing in paintball for five years. I've been planning on getting into medieval re-enactment and larger LARPs, so thanks Lindybeige! I know my worth now! (proceeds to skip merrily into the distance.)
I agree 100% with your point. Someone can be pretty good in a brawl, but are useless in a shieldwall if they can't march in time or hold formation well enough. I've seen quite a lot of chaps focus entirely upon how to use a sword and are complete rubbish to be next to in a battle line.
I don't think such a skill could really be worked into a table-top RPG really, save for perhaps having perception checks to see if the character can read what the enemy is plotting. However a player with a good tactical mind can be a great asset even if their character isn't that skilled or their rolls aren't worth a poo. A coordinated party can be quite a lot more powerful than their levels alone.
It's not hard depending on how much you're willing to abstract it away. You could just give a bonus when fighting large numbers of enemies.
Daniel Carrier I play D&D and I modify my characters sheets to contain another skill named Hardened. It is the skill that lets you think of a tactic that would work or which guy is the weakest in a line. Things of that nature. It is the skill you get from being in a lot of fights.
What does it do? Is it any different than just increasing your base attack bonus and/or armor class?
Darth Giggles
the 3.5 supplement Heroes of Battle covers ways of gaining tactical advantages, such as bardic knowledge, the various Knowledge skills, et cetera.
It depends on the game, but yeah, Perception + Strategics...It's not like they are generals, but if they are experienced, they'd react quickly at any manouver from the enemy. This skill also fits in a team sport, or maybe panic situations where people will storm any safe location, like Black Friday.
In other words, a tactician. Some RPGs actually have a Tactics skill, though I agree that they are few and far between. Usually the use of the skill gives the individual, or perhaps his side, a modest modifier in combat. Sometimes Leadership skill could be presumed to do the same.
The 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons Warlord class couold be said to have this skill as applied through his various "powers", that improve the attacks and defence of others.
Not necessarily. While good skirmishers tend to be at least decent tacticians, due to the importance of reading the key moments and locations on the field being a primary skill they possess, someone lacking other important skirmish skills (like speed, accuracy and decent weapon ability) could still be a great tactician.
A tactician is someone who is able to employ their resources to the correct locations at the correct moments. In the case of a skirmisher, that is usually themselves and/or a small squad. Such a person may be horrible when they are given a larger number of assets to control, or are expected to manage two group effectively, rather than take advantage of opportunities opened by another force.
Well obviously basic fighting ability is also a necessity.
morallyambiguousnet
I'm not sure of the context of the comment, but weapon skill is relevant to a skirmisher, but not necessary for a tactician. And a higher level of skill is required for a skirmisher than someone in a line, because they are more likely to be fighting with less support. In my experience (obviously not a definitive statement) a skirmisher or group that is unable to dispatch, or at minimum evade, several people and get to his main task of disruption is of more worth in the line, or protecting your flanks close to the group.
Wreqt
As we are discussing skirmishers my comment is essentially that a good tactician, with good weapon skill, will generally make a good skirmisher.
morallyambiguousnet
Agreed then good sir.
Situational Awareness is what the modern (at least the US) military refers to this as and they attempt to instill this idea as well as it's importance at every chance they get. My personal opinion is that this focus on situational awareness coupled with very high stress situations is compounding the PTSD issues many veterans are facing. Understanding and knowing that you are home safe is easy, turning off a well tuned "hyper vigilance" is a different thing entirely.
This is why I will always love strategy games over run and gun games.
what you describe was present in most pnp rpgs i've played, just that its called perception and is the "get out of dumb questions for free" card of the gm ;D
This applies to any situation where strategic teamwork needs to be combined with technical skill, such as software development.
Or group sex.
Can you put "software development" and "group sex" into consecutive comments? I've never seen it done before, this may be a first.
Mikey R "Im part of a software development team working on an app for those looking to organise group sex."
Tinder for parties.
is that a new jumper?
Not very, but I seldom wear it. It isn't real wool - I think it's acrylic. Thanks for bringing me back to the important topics.
Lindybeige It looks nice. Where did you buy it? :D
ThePickaxeMoviesMC Two words: inside joke ^^
Piren'e Colass HehEhEHEHEH
gO TO tRuThConTEstCOm< rEAd THe PreSent
This skill does come up in PnP roleplaying, but it's a meta skill. If you're actually good at reading a battle and know where to shift your attention, especially as someone who heals and buffs other characters, your party will do much better.
Having a number that tells everyone else that you know how to read a battle, won't do the player much good if he/she doesn't actually know how to keep themselves from getting transfixed by their own part of the battle.
I feel that I am a pretty decent cleric. I know that I've saved my current DnD party's collective skins by not participating in the actual fighting nearly as much as helping those in need and ruining the day of those whose needs don't concern me.
You might say that that has always been the job of the cleric, but that doesn't mean that everyone knows how to do it properly.
So in conclusion, I'd say that skirmish skill has always been part of RPGs, but it's one skill that cannot exist on paper
Now, this example is not quite the same but none the less is relevant, I went paint balling one time in a forested and rough terrain area, and each team had fifteen members each, I was put on a team where the players weren't exactly athletically fit and the other team was made up of big, sporty fellas. I knew we had a slight disadvantage so I split us up into three groups of five and sent one group around the left flank under cover of trees, bushes and small hills, and another group round the right flank under cover of the same things.
As the enemy team came running at us head on and guns blazing, our friends came round the back and we basically trapped them inside a triangle. and so we slowly walked towards them, going from cover to cover, firing our guns and when it was over we had only lost three people, where as the other team was obliterated.
I am now always selected as commander for these kind of things and I always try to use new tactics every time so my friends can't catch on to my strategies. As for the roll play games, I've always wanted to be a commanding officer of sorts, but the game forces you into the idea that you need to be a peerless expert duelist who cuts down all in his path, when I just want to command, this is why I play games like Total War and Mount and Blade.
The ability to read the battle is of the player not of the character
That would mean that only actual veterans of medieval skirmishes could play characters who are good in a skirmish. There aren't many of those about today.
Lindybeige
I think the difference on players who can do that and can't do that could be seen very good in D&D4 (sure, the game was not for everybody), but with the heavy focus on the minatures and all the powers that could grand advantages beyond just the damage output, one could watch some players just approaching nevertheless everything headon while others used powers to move them or the opposition like chesspieces and thus demonstrated an awareness on battle dynamics... and since D&D4 didn't cared much about realism one didn't had to be a mediveval skirmish expert, it was the methodology of how players thought about how the fight that made the difference.
Lindybeige
I played DSA ("Das Schwarze Auge") a few years ago. It's a german pen and paper (there is a PC version, but...meh...)If I remember correctly there are at least two different skills to read a fight: fight alertness, which cut the time to overview the situation in half and helps to keep the distance to the enemy at the range you prefer.Then there is "fight feeling" which buffs your movement through the battlefield.Both skills enable to switch attack actions with defence actions without announcement. Also surprise attacks are easier to block
I mean more that the character has his skills on the combat and you are the one that moves him on the battlefield getting in the best position and the sort...
A bad player is always the one that makes the tactical mistakes in that regard. It's like a wargame, your troops have skills, you are the general so you don't have general skills on moving them but it depends on your choices
Ben Mad Wurst The Dark Eye (the english title of DSA) is in my opinion one of the worst RPGs there is (I really like the setting, but the game mechanics are horrible, note: I am speaking about the tabletop game, not the video game versions). Somehow the creators of DSA think that realism can be achieved with having far to complex game mechanics, the that every single fight takes like forever to play it out. Both talents you mention are nevertheless more of the fighting skill category and not don't bring any general skirmish awareness with them.
A guy who can take out 8 or 9 guys on the other team is pretty darned useful but it is useful being able to read the fight and see where groups of people are vulnerable.
This is really nice to hear since it sort of validates a lot of my opinions about simulations and games in general. In Battlefield, or a real time strategy game like Company of Heroes, it's exactly the sort of people you're talking about that make the difference. Battlefield awareness saves the day!
There is a skill in world of darkness that kinda represents this.
Its called leadership, and allows one person in a group to coordinate the skirmish.
Everyone following his commands will then get a bonus to initiative equivalent to his rolled successes on leadership.
I'm currently working on an RPG system for me and my friends to use (we aren't fans of D&D, it's far too clunky). Instead of having classes that define characters, the characters get to pick several abilities that define their character. This allows for greater customization, diversity, and versatility. After watching this video, I decided to create a Tactician ability. The Tactician ability essentially allows the player to predict enemy actions, or get the idea of what they are trying to accomplish next. He can then relay orders (or suggestions) to his party, granting them bonuses to their rolls as long as they are following these orders and the orders strategically correspond to the current situation.
Love your videos! Thanks for the great idea, Lloyd!
Just FYI, D&D is not really clunky. It was designed to give specific roles to characters, that they might cooperate. The problem w/"smorgasbord" skill systems is you can have a great-in-theory but actually useless-to-the-group character. Compromise systems can bridge the gap, but D&D is not a lesser animal in this. It excels in being a team game. Not a game for all uses, ofc.
Very affirming to hear someone talk about this.
The tactician you're describing is useless without the men who are good at "Wielding their weapons", though.
A skirmish is a team - and the best person in a skirmish is someone who's not only a good tactician, but both good with their own arms and capable of determining which person is better at what within the army. How to use each member of their party's strengths to the most effect.
For example, you might have 5 amazing sprinters in a squad - using them to maybe force the enemy to give chase would be better than using them in the front of a shield wall. Equally, you might have a few huge motherfuckers - expecting them to flank the enemy when they'd be better off at the front of a shield wall makes no sense.
It's about knowing who's better at what, and using them to their full advantage.
I think it works much like in a football match. Of course the ball-winning ability and the fitness of the individual players is important, but that alone doesn't make a great team. They also need tactics and combination play. One exceptional striker can't win a match on his own but a player who is coordinating the build up can make a big difference.
YenzQu Sorry - that analogy went over my head - I fuckin' hate football. >_<
All I'm saying - is that a well trained army - with each individual being assigned to the task they're best at, makes for a nigh unstoppable force.
Vehementi I'm not into football either but I think it kind of needs similar skills. Maybe you like tactical shooters better. Both can only be won as a team. It is not enough to concentrate on one single opponent only. You need to be aware of the whole situation, make split second decisions, coordinate with your team-mates and maybe also give orders. And it all has to happen simultaneously wile you're fighting.
Vehementi But what makes a well trained army? Often (particularly in RPG) it's assumed to be weapons skill. But real battles aren't won on blade-skill or numbers or force, but by tactics. That's what this "skirmish skill" is about. Knowing where to be and who to hit is more important than perfect technique.
Everyone requires some basic combat skills, but his point, which really is true, is that the side wins who has the guys who are best at knowing the right time to charge so as to achieve a group advantage. There will always be a time when a poor swordsman can take out a great or middling swordsman.
Skirmish is not just about innate ability it's about training.
In the Vikings we trained to skirmish in 3s. 3 guys would not charge 3 separate people but targeted one victim, the first would engage the victim from the front, the second run around behind and stab him in the back, the 3rd would act as guard ready to face off anyone who comes to the victim's aid which they would when they realised what was happening. When the victim was dead (in seconds) the guard would most likely be engaged so the process repeated on the new victim.
I'm building a Pen and Paper RPG with combat based on the concept of distinct types of combat: Ranged combat, Skirmishing skill, and Melee exchanges. It's a class-less game whereby you get good at the skills you use, so someone who skirmishes a lot will get good at it and someone who stays at ranged won't. I think the separation of Skirmishing and Melee Exchanges achieves what you described... Thanks for the inspiration! :)
Precisely my experience as well. The guys that could identify weak points, and either throw javelins well, or get around the back to take out those key pieces that were very good at using their weapons. Often, these fighters were pretty good with their weapons as well.
I also found that, even in fairly confined spaces of 35 m x 35 m, good cardio could be a HUGE factor. Having someone harrying your flanks, and needing to send 2-3 people after him, and then having him run just out of reach, could pull important resources out of the battle.
I'd better stop before we go too far into the stories. Lets just leave it at, with over a decade of experience fighting these types of battles several times a week, having a good flanking group is just as important as having a strong core.
I really should get back into this at least to some degree; I miss it so much...
This is Thrand!!! Well said and thought out there are some good at every thing but it is true some excel better at single combat others Shield walls and formation fighting.
Can you do a video about the difference between fighting in a dual and in formations. I always hear people saying, "However in a formation everything would be totally different" but they never seem to explain what that kind of fighting looked like.
1) the skill to read the battle is a playerskill not a charskill
2) if you break it doen there are skills for most of the things (perseption, Int(strategy), (empathy maybe? for reading the opponents willpower?) and so on
3) another problem is that in most RPGs formationfighting and strategy is not that common and can (as showen in the example below) possibly lead to a TPK if not carefully balanced by the DM.
my example (from a game i ran a while back):
the party: a warrior, a rogue and a mage (in the system we run there are no clerics so mages do the magikal healing)
they were batteling through a tower guarded by trained soldiers when the came into a corridor guarded by 3 guys with spear&shield (in a phalanx giving them +1 defence), a healing mage kneeling behind them (heeling them and getting cover from them) and 2 archers behind that. sounds simple right? yea... no.
the fight tock a long time because the party had real problems taking down the spearmen because they got healed from the mage. they couldnt get to the mage prperly because he was behind the spearmen (so only the mage or the rogue coult hit but the mage was trying to keap the warri alive)
and no it was not due to bad rolles on the side of the party nor had i OP rolls...
and i didnt even use my original plan of sending a second group (like 2-3 gus with swords) through one of the other corridors and attacking them fromo behind
Yea, situational awareness. Been trying to get other gamers to grasp this concept for ages. It's the key component for being a useful team member and the single most important trait of a good leader in games.
I am not good of a shot in FPS games, but I can process what is going on on the field quite well, which allows me to function as an effectiveness multiplier for the people I play with, which is a very fun role imo.
In Ars magika rpg, there is the Leadership skill, which determines the bonuses that character gives when leading a unit or formation of people. If a person has high LD skill, that person gives better bonuses.
Although while it does provide a sort of skill representing this, the whole squad dynamic is sorta clunky in Ars magika.
Plus it can very quickly get out of hand if the opposition starts flinging fireballs.
I'd guess (as i saw in an earlier post) the thing is that skirmish skill isn't really relevant that often.
Unless you play as a character and/or set of characters with a number of troops under their command.
Perhaps a couple of armed sergeants with some spearmen at their disposal, tasked by their lord to defend a village. And the campaign focuses around that?
I also think that often, dice rolls aren't the proper way to deal with some skirmishes in rpg's. When two sides are going to battle each other it's often just easiest to narrate the battle, and preferably have the players fight some boss type character/characters during the scene, or have a non-battle objective, like lowering the drawbridge or something.
The actions of the characters matter, but the entire scene doesn't boil down to 50 characters with different hp (and at times different stats for every one) in a massive melee in an rpg system. I for one think that doing that in like DnD 4th ed, or Gurps or any other system basically it would just become an endless dicerolling.
In some systems there is squad rules, but at times they are to simple, leading to entire units of experienced fighters just being annihilated by unreasonable opposition, just because one die-roll went a bit awry.
So my way of doing it. Just narrate, the most fitting and probably most dramatic outcome will come from that, especially if the players are given or do some actions of their own to assist the fight, without standing on the front line slogging off against loads of dudes.
I agree. The awareness of battlefield and knowing where you should be and who should you be fighting at the moment is one of most important skills in modern team bohurts (like Battle of the Nations)
''The skirmish is as vital to battle as a lid is to jam. If it is in a jar'', Count Frederik Von Battenburg the 3rd, 1438 A.D
That skill is something players *need* to have, not their characters. What You described is basically meta knowledge. I personally allow my players to roll knowledge/intelligence checks for this sort of things (aka to get my advance of what their characters would think is a good idea) as a house rule. It's the only use I found for knowledge(fighting style) and knowledge(weapon) some systems have (I occasionally gave in-game bonuses as well)
None of this is to say that being proficient in the use of your weaponry *isn't* vitally important. It's just not *paramount*, as some might misconceive.
As mentioned elsewhere, this is usually left to the player on the "strategic" level and abstracted away at the "tactical" level, perhaps with a skill roll for some small bonus.
This video did inspire in me, however, an idea for a game of D&D where Sense Motive is basically precognition (force opponent to declare next action), defended against by Bluff (if you roll well, you get to lie). It would be really easy to cheat at this, though... It would also slow the game to a crawl. The usual solution, I think, is to have opponents declare their actions simultaneously, though this puts the onus entirely on the player. All such systems would get exponentially more complicated the more people are involved too...
I think then that, while very far from ideal, the dominant way of doing things is a compromise favouring speed of play.
Agreed: SM would definitely be the D&D 3e variant, at least IMO. Possibly synergized, or class-limited to use it that way. SM already had a "size up enemy" splat bk option, but more towards "could he kick my @$$?" checks.
I don't know about Role Playing Games, not my cup of tea, but any good melee mob needs a general. Someone who knows their tactics and his overall battle plan. Such a battle plan could be simply to go =====> That way and so you make a formation that allows you to advance in that direction while being in melee combat. It is generally best for this individual to not be actively engaged in physical combat himself. You can't read the situation otherwise. I don't know if you have done this or not, but if you haven't, you should try maneuvering formations. Once you see the rank and file, broken down into companies, battalions, regiments, and divisions the whole picture opens up to you. You could do this on a smaller scale by having, say, groups of five. So if you have 25 guys, you will have 5 groups of 5. Find a military Drill and Ceremony manual and march them about. You will learn how to move formations quickly, efficiently, and you teach them to respond to your voice immediately without the "Wait, huh?" factor. Then when you next do one of your skirmishes, see how well this works out. I'll bet there will be less chaos. Think of formations that would split the other team. If you make a wedge, you maintain unit integrity and split enemy forces, causing the enemy commander to have to watch both left and right as two separate units.
as many people pointed out, skirmish skill as a note on your character sheet is not really necessary in RPG's, especially when using miniatures to represent combat. it is a player skill. However, if a GM wants to make a point of it, without cooking up a new house rule, how about an awareness check (or equivalent) to spot flankers? Or to see weak spots? A player may ask a GM if he can see some kind of advantage or have a sense of how it's going beyond what's on the table (if playing with miniatures). Not everything in RPG's needs rules from a book as long as players and gm's communicate.
In a RPG played without miniatures it would take more description by the GM and note-taking by players to make player's skirmish skill have an effect, but it does not need a rule per say.
I plan on perhaps one day writing a role playing game and I generally find your videos very useful as reference material, and I am very thankful. This video brings up how role playing games do not address skirmishing skill, but how would you write rules to incorporate skirmishing skills in a role playing game?
Some games use a Tactics and/or Strategy skill. How I see it used is most simply a buff skill. "+1 to hit for your side" which can be a bit boring. Other times it's an information skill, letting you read the enemy manouvers and your own. Arthurian game Pendragon has a Battle skill which simulates your knights ability to perform in large battles. Moving in them, positioning, getting overviews.
I think the skills exist, but they are rarely used in combat (empathy, perception, etc. ). Adding a 'asses opponent(s)' phase before attacks for a small variable bonus that round might be nice to simulate your point, which made me smile.
I feel we often get into combat fatigue and it devolves into 'I hit enemy with weapon'. I feel there is a general lack of non-killing skills usage in combat in a lot of systems, when they can play and important role in outcome of skirmishes. We often become berserkers in mentally, trading blows and hope you hit harder and faster. With a little bit of creativity I think it can work in existing systems pretty well.
This is a really interesting topic. A shame this video is so short, as I'd happily listen to you chatter about this for hours.
Map awareness.
The German Roleplaying System "Das Schwarze Auge" (The Dark Eye) has a "Warfare" skill. The skill can then be modified with a specialization into "strategy" or "logistics" or "fight against monsters/dragons...etc" or indeed into "tactics".
The game allows you to use an action per turn to "use skill warfare (tactics)". The amount of points you score in this action can be used to buff the initiative of other fighters in the same group. You can even destribute them at your own discretion, giving all the points to just one or two fighters, boosting them greatly. Or indeed boost everyone just a little bit (or at least until your points run out).
I think this reflects very well to what you are proposing.
Fond memories how hiding in a bush and popping out behind the enemy xD
Legend of the Five Rings has a Mass Combat system, wherein each side has a general that rolls a contested Battle skill roll each round, and each of the players rolls a d10 + their Battle skill ranks. Certain rolls on the table give Heroic Opportunities or duels where you can give bonuses to your General's next roll or earn Glory. In regular skirmishes you get to add your Battle skill to your Initiative. (Which is actually based off reflexes and experience!)
That is also used in the L5R Role-playing game. has proved vital for my characters survival and reputation over the years.
Also Traveller has tactics and recon skills, either can be used in this way, but depending on the skill used gives different results. Examples, Say you use Recon, you see what they are doing, that the opponents seem weak over there. Use tactics, you you see the weakness is intentional and meant to lure/trap you.
I wouldn't have given this a second thought, it makes perfect sense and is entirely intuitive. Situational awareness, battle sense, that's very very important. And oh, I know it's not an ideal analogue, but this is true in competitive gaming as well. One has to be aware of the overall scenario, and their standing and their team's standing in it. Otherwise it's self-interested tunnel vision.
Nice video.
(Roleplay games are very individualistic. More realistic games are more considerate to crowd antics.)
example 2. Final dregs of the battle - there's me and 6 opposition warriors. I run for space, the 6 pursue. I stop, turn and down the fasted one then flee for space again. repeat process (yes they really thought it would work allowing me a Hollywood ending of swift individual combats). This only worked because they had no clue how to fight together in skirmish and I was desperate (and somewhat fitter at the time).
That's why l love World of Warcraft,the mass battlegrounds (for people who love to play PvP and want to excell in it) reading and knowing what other player's classes are doing and are capable off is one of the PvP player's traits after experiencing a lot of PvP gamehours. It's easy to learn where the weak spot is, people when in a line formation will most of the time start to crack from the sides, people push harder/weaker on one side of the line so when there is a small gab you seperate them from the main line and take them out.
That is pretty much the same tactic riot troops use (swat/mobilised cops)
It's a little bit how in football, the Team Captain is not always the best player in the team (and not often a striker - they tend to be midfielders or defenders), they're the guy who can read what's going on and direct their team mates in such a way as to be most effective.
With respect to RPGs, it's not so much that there is no "skirmish skill" skill, it's that a lot of the qualities are divvied up under other skills - it's a suite of skills. I do think however that the rulebooks could make it clearer that skills can be used in that way.
For example, players could use the Spot skill to Spot which enemies are more likely to break formation, or to notice enemies trying to out flank them. Meanwhile the players themselves can use skills like hide and move silently to outflank their opponents. Then there are rules that give attack bonuses for flanking, or leadership skills that can give your team-mates bonuses.
GURPS Tactics skill is for this. Rolled once at the beginning of combat for a general bonus, rolled specifically to notice changes and tricks.
I think with a lot of roll playing games, the situations where there would be fights, are more like duels, and any larger battles would be determined by the decided actions of the player. I can see, however, that that skill could come in handy when implementing such moves, as flanking a line, or charging, or leading, as you mentioned.
"Game sense" is a very important skill, but overall communication and teamwork are what wins group battles. One could underatand exactly the best tactic, but unless one can organize their aide and execute it; it means very little
You are correct loyd, this is why in d20 rpgs you have a grid to move around on. This is why a good character can die if the player is bad and does something stupid. The Skirmish skill falls on you the player, based on your decisions on the grid and what you do with your actions. Dnd and roll20 games in general, when it comes to combat, are skirmish simulators.
If we added a skirmish skill, there wouldn't be a need for combat to simulated on a grid. Your skirmish skill is your skill as a player.
Most common role-playing game combat is one vs 3-5; and 3-5 vs 3-5. Most fighting happens outside of the battlefield and away from any army (unless it's a goblin or other monstrous army).
Because the skill comes up as often as flower arrangement skill it is often not included. But when it is included it's called "tactics" or "strategy" or something similar.
Realms of arkania (Das schwarze Auge) has that - actually in multiple forms. It has a skill for strategy which more comes into play before the actual battle and allows to see terrain that gives you an advantage in the upcoming fight, count in weather conditions, temperature, spot enemy weaknesses etc.
Then there is the warfare skill that allows you to fight well in formations, spot weaknesses in the enemy line(s) do tactical movement during battle and adds to your initiative
And we have the tactic skill which is more or less just for really big scale battles to move armies around and give them an advantage over the enemy, securing supply routes, surrounding an army, setting up traps etc. while there are some adventues where tactic comes in handy, they are really late game (after all you characters need to have a great reputation to be allowed to command armies) and doesnt come into effect much.
The very first skill my sword school teaches is observation - learning to read the world around you and keep your situational awareness up, and yes, it is CRUCIAL. I'm often called on to hold the center of the line, and it's a little nuts how hard it can be to fend off three people at once from even just a 45 to 90 degree arc in front of you.
A command element can help, but you also need to be able to have a shred of attention in the thick of things to hear and understand that element. Skilled commanders make it easier, but it always requires some training on the individual fighter's part.
I think I have a way to simulate "skirmish skill" in a RPG, based on combat and movement instances.
There's your traditional combat instances (attack, defense) and your traditional movement instance (advance, retreat, hold). So you can have a list comparing the different combinations of movement and combat (atk+adv vs def+ret = ?), something like a "rock-paper-scissors" thing.
Then the "skirmish skill" would work pretty much like your "fumble rule" from the other video. It would be the abillity to change combat instances without failing. So, for exemple, if you and your opponent are in a stalemate situation (e.g. def+hold vs def+hold), based on your skirmish skill, you could risk changing to a combat instance that gives you the upper-hand, with some penalty if you fail.
To add more complexity, there could be a difficulty value for changing between opposite combat instances, for exemple, if you go from advance to hold, there's less chance of fumbling than going from advance to retreat.
It also seems better if there's more combat instances.
I agree with you about the skirmish skill in the role game but only works if the master wants it. In a medieval pseudo-realistic role game we need to take a small town, the town was downhill and have a lot of open space the enemies have no range weapons or spears but my friends decided to dismount the horse. When I stayed in them and divided my forces, done a fake charge to the enemy to draw their attention meanwhile my other half of the forces charged them form behind. But in the end my other friends with higher combat stats killed more enemies than me working with my forces and planing a strategy and of course they get a higher reward than I.
In Pathfinder and D&D 3/3.5, you use the "Since Motive" and "Perception" skills to determine where a formation would most likely brake. Beyond that, the player is the one who has to read the battle lines.
skirmish skill = tactical skill?
Literally "tactics" skill in GURPS.
Timing is everything in breaking the line.
Lindy, could you do more videos on this topic, pretty please?
That Charisma paired with that captivating matter it is quite deadly to my time.
I play airsoft a lot The most confusing thing is the fog of war (unlike video games were many refer to, you do not have minimap with red and green dots). You are were you are and behind your sight is a world of chaos. And If players are so experienced in map awareness, communication and command they can crush mountains.
Czech paper RPG Dračí Doupě (dont even try to pronounce that) gives warrior this skill to some degree. You can guess the enemy, getting their stats and you can analyze the fight, leading your group in fights because GM (or however you call him) gives him hints depanding on how well he rolled for analyzing the fight.
Twilight 2013 has such as skill. It is called the Tactics skill. The Tactics skill allows you to "get inside an enemy's OODA loop." The OODA loop is a decision making process (Orient,Observe, Decide, & Act) that everyone uses literally millions of times a day. The skill requires a slight modification to the Initiative system of any game it is used in. This "modification" is the addition of a "Declaration Phase" in the Initiative system of the game. During this "Declaration Phase" of a round, the players state what their character's actions will be from fastest initiative to the slowest one. The slower players will gain a slight advantage in seeing "what the faster characters are up to." A character who makes a successful Tactics skill check will get to declare his action (or actions) LAST. This means that a character with the Tactics skill will know what every other combatant is going to do during the round (I also give the character a bonus of 1 to their Initiative roll in my games). This is a significant advantage in combat. The Tactics skill is modified by the character's knowledge of his opponent.
-If the character knows his adversary; The Skill difficulty is EASY (2 X skill level).
-If the character has knowledge of his adversary's tactics (a Roman soldier fighting a Roman trained opponent); His skill difficulty is AVERAGE (normal skill).
-If the character has no experience with his adversary's tactics; His skill difficulty is DIFFICULT (1/2 skill level) or may even be worse.
In a fight with two (or more) users of the Tactics skill; The character with the lowest skill roll declares last.
Well, as far as RPGs go besides being a player skill, to use 3.5e D&D as an example, the "Skirmish skill" would just be an extension of your character's Base Attack Bonus. The D&D system is all very abstract, so the Armour Class of the character being their ability both to dodge, deflect and absorb blows versus the Attack score as their opportunity to hit means that a character with high Base Attack is not just better with a sword, but also better at finding the opportune moment to strike (in any situation.)
But your Base Attack Bonus is the same whether you're one-on-one or ten-on-ten. Skirmish skill is useless for one-on-one fights.
It's generalised for any situation, probably for simplicity. I don't think most DMs run campaigns which involve real skirmishes, either... So perhaps in a game with more emphasis than that on large group conflicts I could see differentiating the two skills, but even then it opens the door for too many other modifiers people might want.
Robert Graham
Heroes of Battle was written to handle these sorts of military engagements.
Exalted, for all of its mechanical faults, handles this fairly well.
It features a separate "War" rating that's used for the player characters when they are directing troops.
Troops, on the other hand, have a "Drill" rating which determines how good they are at fighting as a unit and how good they are at following orders.
However, it is important to know what your game is created for. Exalted was designed to allow the player to become an all powerful demi-god-king which inevitably involves plenty of conquering and warfare along the way. Rules that simulate mass combat are very important to the game. Dungeons and Dragons is a game that was designed for dungeon crawling and shooting fireballs at skeletons. Warfare was not on the top of the list of priorities.
It is important however to not underestimate individual fighting skill as well. While reading the battlefield is very important, not everyone needs that to be their primary skill. More importantly, it is important to have a combination of both. This isn't as hard as some may think, as being good at one doesn't make you any less skilled in the other.
When I used to DM, my usual approach to this issue was to assume that the fighter characters in my group had training in arms but little or no experience in actual combat (they were all supposed to be young adventurers, after all) and let the players work those things out through experience. Sometimes, if we had a character who was supposed to be experienced, I'd have the player make perception and intelligence tests in certain situations: if successful, I'd give them some info to help them figure out things ("you realize that the enemy is pushing your group back; the NPCs on your side seem to be faltering and they might be close to breaking and running away") Stuff like that.
I think another important 'skill', if it could be considered so, in skirmishes is line discipline.
The ability to maneuver the line to offset any flanking attempts is vital.
In D&D there are many rolls you can make to attempt to attain that information, usually wisdom based rolls and perception.
It's all up to your DM to allow for the best possible experience for the party.
Dodge ball with no teams seems to be a good way to tell who has situational awareness and is able to sense intent. From the dodge ball games i've played, it wasn't the best throwers that were left, it was the people who knew when/where to move at the right time and were able to sense who was going to throw at them from any direction.
Two points about the (pen&paper) rpg aspect: The most popular german p&p game "Das schwarze Auge" (/"The dark eye") has rules for battle tactics and fighting in formation, but I think nearly no one ever uses them. DSA/TDE is a very complex system and there are a lot of rules most people don't use. But Why? The problem is that common groups of player consists of 3, 4, 5 or 6 players plus gamemaster. Some of their characters are perhaps not even fighters or they're not comfortable with close combat. Let's say that 6 people get attacked in a forest. One runs away, because he's a scholar without fighting skills. Another starts casting a spell, two others making their bows / crossbows ready. The 2 remaining people just can't get into a useful formation. Just back to back or something.
The tactical skill of someone is just not so important in such small groups of fighters.
You're right, Lindybeige, few RPGs have a skill like that. GURPS of course has it, it's called Tactics and it's Mental/Hard (based off intelligence and costly). Barring that... maybe The Riddle of Steel... maybe. And/or The Burning Wheel. Off the top of my head.
More games could surely benefit from this kind of skill (at least in a simulationist perspective).
Some systems have a "tactics" skill. or something of a kind, but it typically fails to influence combat resolut in a satisfying way because it abstracts player involement. On the other hand role-playing without any abstract gamifier is also unrealistic as it depends on how good is the GM, how good he can relate the flow of combat to the players, how well the players understand what is being related to them, etc. It is a bit like trying to command an infantry squad in a close combat via motorola from a company HQ half a mile away.
Well D&D does have more than a few classes built towards that style of play and there's always the perception skill, as vague and all-encompassing as that skill is. It's up to the players mostly to realize how best to handle a fight using proper scouting to find the enemies then to attack accordingly. Most encounters don't have the PC's fighting large formation at a time mostly due to the size of the party. Wouldn't be fitting for the GM to throw a platoon sized formation of Goblins at a low leveled party of 4 or 5 guys.
I can't claim to know a lot of different RPGs. But I know D&D 4th ed. And the Warlord class there is def what you would call a skirmish specialist - repositioning allies accros the battlefield, granting advantages to allies and disadvantages to foes, that sort of thing..
The game tabletop RPG Exalted chalks battle tactics down to an ability called War, and it's basically all this tactics from knowing how to manage and supply troops, to leadership, to group battle tactics. Whereas the 4 other major combat skills Melee, Archery, Martial Arts and Throw are more specific to hand to hand or ranged combat against individuals.
And the game Amber simplifies this further down an attribute just called Warfare. Which covers everything from tactics and troop management to skill with every and any weapon. But Amber is about playing godlike characters, so it makes more sense for it to be more general.
Perfect. Wishing more games took this into account.
In the tabletop game I am developing, the unit's total Initiative value at the moment determines rate of reaction. Unlike most games where this is wrongly an inherent skill, the Initiative of a unit in this game depends on their Unit Range, which utilizes two fundamental traits to reacting quickly: Sensory and Coordination. The first allows the unit to understand what is going on as soon as possible while the second is important for the unit to get its act together once it fully realizes what’s happening.
So even if you have a unit exceptionally great at close combat, they can be outdone by a group of more disciplined (if less skilled) warriors acting as a fighting unit.
If you are outnumbered the solution would be to adopt something like a schiltron formation so you can defend all sides. And hopefully have some other advantage you can make use of like better armour or skill at arms.
This reminded me of a situation where perhaps I presented this very skill, or maybe I was just lucky.
During a LARP set in Witcher universe our company of Kaedwenian soldiers was retreating from an unsuccessful charge on enemy positions. While walking through the woods we were ambushed by small group of elves with bows. During the skirmish I managed to capture the leader, the fight stopped and we were able to negotiate safe pass for releasing her. We would have been all killed or captured if not for that action.
well... one bit about like "fantasy roleplaying tabletop games" is that...fights don't get to skermish level frequently. It's normally like 5 guys vs whatever and such "Macro" level skills are not as immediate. Though the martial leader classes that started showing up in various additions of dnd seem to at least have a pretend amount of knowledge about these things.
In Pathfinders Kingmaker pre-made module where you are put in charge of running a kingdom, there is mentions of a pseudo skirmish skill. The general of an army would use "Profession - Soldier" rolls agaisnt the other generals skill, and see how they compared. Who ever won that roll gave bonuses to their armies actual attacking phase. Although, a ludicrously high level player (Were talking maximum possible achievable level) could very well count as an army on their own and fight other armies by themselves, and win. Although they would still most likely die if they tried to take on a discipline and numerous army filled with sufficiently high enough level soldiers, lead by a competent general.
A skirmish skill could be something along the lines of being able to read the opponents and your own soldiers, whether they are fresh or exhausted, filled with morale or wavering. This could help you make decision regarding whether to attack or defend, in the midst of combat. Like an in-combat-perception check.
Battlefield tactics can play a big role in D&D. There are D&D classes and sub-classes that specialize in battlefield tactics. The 4e Warlord and the 5e Battlemaster come to mind. The Battlemaster fighter archtype is just what you are looking for. If you are playing a Battlemaster and you can read the field, you will consistently slay, and you won't be the party bleeder. Bleeding profusely is the role of the 5e Champion. Steer clear of that archtype. It's for chumps.
Here are a few of the things that would take. Well, you will need to alter the genetic code to create additional specific bones, then you will need to alter it to create additional musculature to move those bones, circulatory to keep the tissue alive, lymph, and then additional nervous system paths and an additional motor cortex area in the brain to control it... and different shoes likely, because most probably that would mean an additional big toe as well. So, while it would be a cool idea... hmm not likely. On the other hand, a prosthetic thumb which you wear over the arm and control in a mimic of the actual thumb by nervous system conduction. Independently controlling it would involve a computer program designed to predict what you are doing with your hands.... so still incredibly complex.
A simple way to represent this would be an additive modifier to the group, if in formation with someone with this skill. By being better, it would make having multiple people in the group, EACH having this skill far more effective --which would be somewhat accurate. So a group of mediocre fighters, each having this skirmish/tactical skill, and so each benefitting from the presence of the others, is far more effective than any of them could be alone.
In my estimation, the bonus applied by this skill should probably ramp up as the character gains experience too. Such that a very experienced guy would add more to the group than a novice, even with the same skill. This would also be appropriate in stacking, as a group of battle hardened AND tactically trained veterans are a FAR more effective group than green recruits -even if those recruits have some skirmish/tactical training.
D&D 3.5 Heroes of Battle. Great book used to establish basic military and tactics based combat! Obviously, it's not perfect but that's where a good GM comes in.
Very interesting, this even leads to games like counter strike where the best person at aiming is not always the one to win (now granted, you die so quickly it can be). Knowing your area (map) and knowing how the enemy will react is key to winning higher ranked games while pure skill at aiming can only take you so far.
Not only true for combat, this also applies heavily to Team sports as well. i play floorball and our mvp is not the guy who shoots accurately and runs the fastest, but our captain/center-field player. he who reads the situation and positions himself tactically.
song of ice and fire (game of thrones) the RPG has a great use of 'warfare' skill. with very good mass combat rules.