This is RPG-ology #83: Tactics, for October 2024.
Our thanks to Regis Pannier and the team at the Places to Go, People to Be French edition for locating a copy of this and a number of other lost Game Ideas Unlimited articles. This was originally Game Ideas Unlimited: Tactics, and is reposted here with minor editing [bracketed].
Once in a while I manage to climb out from behind the referee’s screen and be a player for a while. Frequently when I do so, I end up playing the party leader–and even when I don’t, I find that as a player I have a great deal of influence over what we do and how we do it.
One of the areas that has interested me over the years, to which I have given a great amount of thought, is the idea of being prepared for combat. I have played fighters of every description in quite a few different genres and settings, and have discovered that there are some approaches to combat that work, but even more importantly that any party which expects to be involved in fighting would do well to prepare for it in advance. And thus when I am the party leader, I usually prepare a set of battle plans, specific approaches to combat which the party will learn and use on command. I’ve found that this more organized approach to combat results in a much better chance of character survival, not to mention victory over the enemy.
I’ve also found that it makes play run considerably smoother. That’s not really surprising–or at least it shouldn’t be. I realized after I started doing it that the old AD&D rules recommended doing exactly this to streamline play. Most groups miss it. They walk into a room, and one says, I’m going to look for secret doors, while another says, I’ll map the room, and so forth, and then something gets left out. If instead when the party enters the room, the player leading the group says, “We’re going to use the standard room survey protocol,” which is something written down specifying which character is responsible for what, everything is covered and no time is wasted on routine actions. The same can be done for setting and breaking camp, assigning duties (who’s cooking, and who’s pitching tents?), running watches, and many other activities–including combat. So when we enter a combat situation, my character tells the party and I tell the referee, “We’ll use Battle Plan Two,” and everyone knows what we’re doing without any wasted time.
Some will think this unrealistic; and certainly there will be parties whose approach to combat is, well, once again we’ve been ambushed and are fighting for our lives, every man for himself, I hope we get out of it again. But I think of it as analogous to a football team. The quarterback doesn’t tell his players what each of them has to do, or suddenly announce that he’s got an idea they should try; he tells them to run a particular play which they have practiced, and informs them of anything they need to know that’s different this time. In the same way, a good commander in battle shouldn’t have to explain to his men how he wants it done each time. He should only have to tell them which tactic they will be using, and whether there’s anything that will be different this time.
That said, I’m going to offer a few battle plans that I have found useful over the years. Some of these may seem quite obvious; yet if you take the time to make sure the party knows how to execute them at need, you’ll be a step ahead when combat inevitably comes.
Often the party will see an assault coming, enemy charging directly at them, in open ground. In such cases I would organize to withstand the assault–it’s too late for anything fancy. So what I will today call Battle Plan One involves preparing the party for such an attack. In setting up this plan, you’re going to have to assess your party strengths. Specifically, you will have some fighters who can use ranged fire against the enemy very effectively, and others with little or no ranged attack ability. Conversely, you may have some who cannot survive in the front lines in close combat. You might also have others whose abilities are not related to traditional combat at all–spellcasters in a fantasy game, technicians in a sci-fi setting, medics in any world. You need to put your most powerful ranged fighters behind a line of close combat fighters who can stop the charge if it comes to it. You need to put your non-combatants in the rear, where they will be safe and can do what they do unmolested. But you can’t be standing around saying, “Bob, you stand in front of Bill,” “No, I want to be in the missile line today.” Rather, you need to know that Bob, Frank, and Ted will stand in the front line, with Bill and Ralph firing missiles from behind them, and Mary moving behind them all to administer such medical assistance as can be managed under fire. Then when you say, “Battle Plan One,” everyone goes to his position and starts drawing weapons and firing on the attackers before they’ve closed the gap to martial combat.
On the other hand, there will also be times when you need to cut through the enemy, taking the attack to them. For this, Battle Plan Two is a moving wedge. The man on point has to be your strongest and toughest fighter in close combat; he will be assaulted from both sides, and will have to drive forward into the fray while keeping track of the rest of the group behind him. But two steps behind him to either side will be two more fighters, and another pair behind them. Your non-combatants, and possibly even a good ranged fighter or two (depending on the size of your party–I’ve made this work with as few as five and as many as twenty) are in the center, doing what they do in that protected nest.
In a recent article, I mentioned the time we were caught in a fire fight in the halls of an enemy compound. I realized in the midst of that battle that our enemy had good position, that we had very nearly walked into an ambush; and it occurred to me that if we could convince our opponents that we had been killed, they would give up that position and come close enough for us to strike back effectively. But there was no way I could communicate that to my team in the midst of a firefight. So I later developed Battle Plan Three, and it became such a tradition for me that I always refer to it as Battle Plan Three. When that plan is called, it means the leader is convinced that the enemy has an unassailable position, so whenever you are hit or nearly hit in a way that could pass for a hit, take a dive–we’ll all go down, one at a time, fairly quickly (but not too quickly), and wait for the enemy to come out to investigate or, as is more often the case, loot our bodies. Then on command we’ll strike again.
In that same article I mentioned the ambush, in which the party split into three groups, one of which stood as bait to draw the enemy between the hidden other two. That plan had a number when I used it, and had been taught to the team. There was also a flanking maneuver in which one force would attempt to engage the enemy in direct assault while another force circled out and around to surprise them from the side or rear–and this had left and right variants that would be specified according to the terrain. One group even had a team capable of flight, that in one battle plan would go over the heads of the enemy and land behind them, boxing them in.
Battle plans should be designed for the kinds of places you fight, and the kinds of advantages you have. One swords and sorcery party for which I refereed discovered that they could control a standard width hall by placing two men with pole arms behind two archers. The pole arms tended to keep the attackers back long enough that the archers could finish them before they could land a blow. That group also determined that they could effectively use their several thieves by luring the enemy forward into a head-to-head confrontation while leaving the thieves in position to then come up behind and take out the unguarded rear ranks.
Role playing games sprang from wargames; but for many of us, we never consider those roots. If the characters going into battle are to be realistic, they must think like such characters would think. Soldiers would quite naturally expect to follow a plan of battle; support personnel would almost certainly take their lead from them. If you’re part of a player character party, suggest that it would make sense to figure out what works for your group in combat and what would make it work better.
And if you’re the referee, remember that the enemy fighters are not complete idiots, either. Well, maybe the ogres are–but in the main, enemy fighters also will use battle plans, strategic positions, prepared tactics, against the player characters. Give some thought to these, and make combat a bit more realistic. If you do it, perhaps they’ll take the hint and realize that they would be much more effective a fighting force if they got themselves organized.
Next week, something different.
Previous article: Knowing.
Next article: Possibilities.