For some time now, I've been thinking about creating a game that would combine RPG with Wargaming. I came up with the idea of running a wargaming campaign set in low-fantasy 12th-century France. Players would take on the roles of local barons, counts, or dukes in a fragmented feudal France. They would control their castles, maybe surrounding villages, mines, and towns. Their goal would be to fight for influence, expand their dominion, and even compete for the crown of France or England. However, I would like this campaign to be more than just a wargame where battles decide the fate of the world; rather, I envision it as one where each player, playing their character, can influence the fate of history and the world of the campaign. In addition to battles and sieges, they would have at their disposal actions such as espionage, marriages, diplomatic missions, or setting off on adventures to find ancient magical artifacts that could help them in their struggles.>In other words, how to transfer Paradox's Crusader Kings to a tabletop game?In that game, characters have statistics and traits that reflect their personalities. In addition to controlling their country on the world map, players can also participate in intrigues and adventures as part of events, and roleplay their character.(1/2)
>>96878622(2/2) While pondering this problem, a few ideas came to mind. The first would be to modify existing RPG systems that focus not so much on a single hero but on entire clans and families. This way, the scope of the roleplay is greater, which corresponds to the scale of the planned campaign. An example of such a game is Ars Magica. From what I remember and understand (I have never played this system, although I have skimmed through the rulebook), players take on the roles of mages, but they also command their subordinates, and the gameplay loop itself is focused on the scale of months, days, and years rather than hours and seconds, which perfectly corresponds to the attempt to replicate a grand-strategy game on a tabletop. I also remember that in the early days of RPGs, when they were still closely connected to wargames, there was a “system” called Braunstein. From what I understand, however, it was a loose system based mainly on ad-hoc GM decisions, which focused mainly on wargaming side-of-things while roleplaying elements were merely an addition. I think it lacked the possibility of conducting, for example, a separate dungeon-crawling session between battles or diplomatic deliberations. However, this "primitive system" is certainly close to my vision of the proposed campaign.
>>96878622>>96878637Do you know any RPGs that focus on sagas, families, or even individual heroes, but from a much broader perspective than most RPGs? A system where the player could control, for example, the Count of Picardy, but also his wife, sons and daughters, chamberlain, servants, and generals in his service? I know there are supplements for DnD or Pathfinder, for example, that focus on domain management. However, these systems are still primarily focused on individual heroes. With supplements, the party only reorients its main goals, from the desire to gain fame or money to the desire to enlarge its domain. Running a wargaming campaign using e.x. Pathfinder would be awkward because it would focus the players' and rules' attention where it shouldn't be. As for the wargaming aspect, I think I need to find a system that allows players to reflect their characters on the battlefield in ways other than just leadership skills. Somewhere where their strength, cunningness, and other stats and character traits can influence the outcome of the battle. It seems to me that wargames such as Chainmail, which gave rise to RPGs, may have rules that would allow for this type of game. I have never read it or any other similar systems, so I may be wrong. Could someone who has read it answer whether it would allow for this type of gameplay?
>>96878655What about Pendragon? You're still playing one knight and not his family, but there's mechanics to see what happens with your family and land, get tangled in politics, etc, and it generally leans towards long term campaigns covering decades or even longer, going over multiple generations. Character creation starts by creating your grandparents, and then your parents, and then finally your character. They might not even be alive at this point, but their lives have an impact on yours (inherited oaths or duties, a great legacy you'll be measured against, a sin that now weights on your shoulders...
>>96878622"Easiest" thing I can think is that the players would have a character, a helper, a squad and a land.The character has the most abilities and it's the one that can go solo, gets the missions to do and does most things. It's the one that tracks xp and levels up while helpers and squads stats depend on the character level.The next two are kind of summonable depending on the situation:Helper is the main companion, some kind of half character for when you need more hands. Helper's weakness shouldn't be the rolls, but the lack of abilities.The squad is twenty dudes with the same stats with more abilities about accompanying or using the character abilities in formations with him than being twenty playable guys. They can have a shared HP pool or work with the D&D 4e henchmen rules if you want to track their numbers. They kind of resurrect daily for simplicity.If you are infiltrating alone a prison it's just the characters, if the mission requires doing two simultaneous things is the character and the helper, and if you are assaulting the prison you have your squad.The land gets it's own kind of expendable powers, probably per week to not go to insane with management. With those powers you can get items, gold, influence, daily bonuses or extra squads that aren't your main one. Lands get higher level by expanding. Maybe the land gets a "class" too, but because max level is conquering the whole kingdom, the higher the level the more alike the lands get.
Quite literally 0D&D using Chaimail Man2Man/Mass Combat Rules
>>96878622ACKS
>>96879116Pendragon is neat. Reign is also good in that general direction.>>96882131Awful game. Especially for domain play/mass combat. Better to just grab Birthright or Worlds Without Number.
>>96878622Probably Birthright, ACKS, 2E, 1E, or the Chainmail stuff.
GURPS?
>>96884073GURPS has rules for high-level mass combat, but not really for peaceful domain building. (GURPS Realm Management is shit, and GURPS Low-Tech/At Play in the Fields/Lord of the Manor doesn't have the necessary detail.)
>>96878622The d20 Game of Thrones RPG had decent mechanics for political maneuvering and for mass combat
>>96878655>>96878622There's a LOTR rpg with the numbers filed off that was recommended to me when I asked a similar question.I can't remember what it was called but the pitch was "you play as a certain race and you get the final say in your races affairs." Might have been Fellowship, idk, I never checked it out. That's the narrative end of the scale.There's also the Birthright setting, specifically geared towards this sort of thing I believe.To me, the details of controlling factions honestly isn't that important and is really a matter of choosing what system you like for it, if any. For most systems you can probably run a slightly modified character sheet for whatever organization you want and abstract things like industry, military and economics down to attributes.Most systems with faction rules I've seen tend to be abstracted a little. Rules by the guy in pic related have got faction level stuff but I find it too much book keeping.I think the problem you will run into will be how to juggle time tracking at a organizational level, character level and then IRL time. I've no idea how you can do that outside of play-by-post games. Live or in-person you're fucked because all information is going to be open and player facing.
>>96878622>>96878637>closer to a braunsteinFKR too. Its interesting to see what people got up to and how that's been attempted again in the last decade or so. Tony Bath's Ancient Wargaming is a fast read for some backgroud. Variations on that have been hip indi/osr stuff for a while, there's a decent amount of material on using OSR style games to do domain management and map campaigns in things like ACKS, XYZ-Without Number, An Echo Resounding. Check out Legacy: Life Among the Ruins and its half a dozen or so theme variations if you want more story game focused pbta generational settlement play. I found it a bit too structured and unstructured at the same time for me but ymmv. Going all the way story game there's Kingdom and Microscope for oldies, Kingdom is neat but works best with specifically 3 players. Microscope might work for at least the initial setup of a campaign game. There's likely anons in /hgw/ and /awg/ that would have some insight into the more wargame side of it which I think adds tangible objects and scope, even with just hex & chit, that work better for me than just abstracting.
OP here, thank you for your replies. All recommendations are certainly useful. If I may elaborate on the issue I am facing, I would like to clarify after futher thinking, that I'm actually looking for a game that would correspond to Paradox's videogames. A game that focuses on controlling a country or domain. An economic game, a strategy game, games like Manor Lords, Anno, Age of Empire or The Settlers. From what I understand, such a tabletop game does not exist. That is why I think that the best option would be a hybrid of RPG and Wargame. Thank you for the RPG recommendations I asked for, i.e., those that focus on the perspective of generations, families, and clans rather than individual heroes. >>96879116>>96884349>>96884865It seems to me that they already have a built-in approach to the rules that allows for a better representation of domain management. The problem that now I realized exists is that RPGs that have a system for domains and factions tend to abstract them. World Without Numbers is one example. It's my default RPG and I like it a lot. I used the faction system, and it worked well in RPGs, but I think it would be too shallow for campaigns where the main focus is domain management. >>96884909Thank you for these recommendations. I will read all of them. I was not familiar with the term FKR, and now that I am quickly reading about it, I think I will be able to find something intriguing for me. In general, I wanted to say that I am leaning more towards a wargame that is an RPG than an RPG that has a wargaming system. If you understand what I mean. I'll read up on how chainmail and 0D&D play-out together. Maybe that will be the solution. I will focus more on reasearching the FKR then and how to run wargames campaigns, maybe attached unto that RPG than latch wargames and strategic elements into RPGsIt's a interesting topic, considering that someone probably already figured that shit out in the 70s and 80s while inventing RPGs
>>96884865>I think the problem you will run into will be how to juggle time tracking at a organizational level, character level and then IRL timeI was thinking of dividing game per turns corresponding to seasons. Every IRL week would be a season. Every IRL month then a year. Every person in my local club playing the campaign could once per week either attack their neighboor (other players) or NPCs thus playing a miniatures battle. Alternatively player may be willing to participate in adventure or something else on individual character level, thus requiring a roleplaying session. Also they would manage their domains, expanding, investing or doing anything else to their estates.All of this would be managed by Discord, where once per week (on Saturday e.x.) turns a.k.a. seasons would be concluded. Players will state their goals in upcoming seasons and I, as a GM, will write summaries and present events that unfolds. If players decide to fight a battle, they will set-up a meeting between themselfs while I run roleplay sessions and manage diplomacy, espionage, trade, random events, worlds politics, etc. etc.That's the rough sketch of it
>>96878622I don't know of any out-of-the-box product that would meet your needs but I would look at mechanics from games that I like and do that. Before I go too deep in my ideas, I want to ask a few questions. What level are you thinking, world strategic map level, mass battle level with full regiments, squad level, or a mix? Do you want detailed turn by turn war game or a simplified mass combat system? How much do you want your RP elements to interface with the warfare?What level of interfacing and control do you want your players to have with their agent in the field?
>>96885813Standard, mass battle level, detailed turn by turn wargame!Probably using the upcoming 10mm Grand Battle Scale Azincourt armies from Wargames Atlantic.Mix would also be nice, with 28mm for more intimate battles, but that can be handled by RPG engine I think.When it comes to RP elements on the table I was thinking to only incorporate mechanics that will ilustrate PCs traits and skills and how they interact on the battlefield. PCs would be a officer units, or maybe a small-size units. Their inteligence or wisdom will determine the set-up of a battle. Maybe strength and dexterity would influence theirs units statistics. Skills like leadership would influence mechanics involving giving in orders or helping with morale tests etc. etc.In other words, a wargame system where PCs wouldn't be substituted with some basic officers and generals but also I didn't envision and don't expect a system where PCs would be represented directly in the battlefield - with their HPs, Combat Abilities, Armor and what not.But I wouldn't mind system like that, where PC do play crushial rules in the battlefields
>>96878622Don't.We already told you why so many times prior.Also: stop asking every other week, it's fucking tiresome>b-but I mustThen start playing Pendragon as adviced so many times prior and FUCK OFF ALREADY YOU FUCKING CUNT!
>>96886368Okay, genuinely I don't know who and about whom are you talking about but do you perhaps have a archive link to see those threads? Maybe they gave that OP a good recommendation. Thanks!
>>96886364I have to be honest, this seems to be the worst possible combination of RPG and war game. The problem is that turn-by-turn major battle war games with more than two players drag on for ever. This game may work for one table in the entire hobby as a distraction for a couple of months. There's a reason why this particular product doesn't exist.
>>96878622Go visit /qst/, run a barony quest and finally fuck off from /tg/ with those inane threads.Seriously, how many fucking times one can ask the same fucking question?
>>96885688In that case you want to start looking at campaign rules for wargames probably. Particularly historical wargaming, as that tends to lean into the RPG stuff more and the playerbase is more inclined to write house systems for that kind of thing.What you're describing sounds like a megagame to me, just played out week to week instead of live.Here's a few I found https://sts-gamer.itch.io/
>>96878637You could take inspiration from dune trpg for that. I was personally planning to do a wargame/rpg hybrid based on band of blades.
>my homemade system>very detached from B/X base>sandbox campaign>11 players atm each have multiple PCs and retainers>all players control varied communities with home bases>all PCs begin as zero level ex-slaves>everybody has the potential to get rich and powerful in the wild frontier that is bordering chaos realms>players have the freedom to keep on cleaning dungeons or start messing with local politics and the background plots if they wantWorks for me. If it's not sword and sorcery you want pick some light game system and patchwork it into whatever. FKR is the best way imo for war gaming and mass combat. Rules heavy is for people with too much time.
>>96885636> I wanted to say that I am leaning more towards a wargame that is an RPG than an RPG that has a wargaming system. If you understand what I mean.Very much so. I started with wargames and narrative systems so adding them to rpgs has been fairly straight forward to me. There's a few different takes on campaign systems that might be worth looking at. Oathmark has a fairly well liked kingdom building campaign system if you're aiming at fantasy. iirc Renegade Crowns had rules for whfb and the rpg integration but that's been a while. Chain of Command campaigns are ww2 but an interesting method. Current campaign system I'm sticking together is Space Battles and Stars Without Number faction turns, doesn't seem overly difficult to make work.
Fucking post timer, then the page on my phone refreshed. I'll try and find the file when I can but Over the Hills and Far Away is 7 years war and light on the battle rules but as far as campaign material goes it might be good inspiration for your own homebrew. /hwg/ might have a copy if I'm waylaid.
>>96885636I wonder if you ought to take the approach of treating the two aspects as two related but separate games. This is broadly how BattleTech/MechWarrior handles it:-Mecha-scale battles are handled using normal BattleTech rules-Individual-scale stuff is handled using MechWarrior (RPG) rules. This includes stuff like character advancement, politics, etc.-Campaign-scale stuff is handled by BattleTech campaign-level rules, but informed heavily by RPG interactions.So you end up with three separate but closely-linked rulesets to handle the three separate but closely-linked types of gameplay.I'm not saying that you need to use BattleTech, I'm just saying that maybe you should find a good domain management game separately from e.g. Pendragon, and have the RPG stuff manifest as modifiers or let it guide actions within the framework of the rules, but with outcomes determined by RPG interactions instead of directly by rolling dice.
