TACTICAL CONFLICT

Ever wanted a way to run large-scale battles that got your players involved and required very little minutae? Here’s the Beta for Crystal Geyser’s new narrative Tactical Conflict System. It’s largely based on the Social Conflict system from Black Crusade’s Tome of Excess, with modifications made to represent mid-scale battles involving various squads of people. This system is ideal for a group that prefers story over the bureaucracy of moving and supplying units, but doesn't want to oversimplify things.

In any given Tactical Conflict, every player has a number of characteristics. One Tactical Conflict is roughly equivalent to one military battle or engagement. Wars are made by linking multiple Tactical Conflicts together.

Forces: Forces is a measure of how much manpower, materials, armor and munitions a commander can muster. When a Tactical Conflict starts, a number of points taken from a character’s Influence, Profit Factor, Infamy or Reknown can be committed. Leaving some uncommitted is useful for two reason – first, it provides a reserve to draw upon for later battles. Second, during a Tactical Conflict or War a character suffers a penalty to his Acquisition Tests equal to the current points’ worth of Forces deployed.

Stages to a Tactical Conflict

1. Note Values. The GM and the participants in a Tactical Conflict note down their Forces. For enemy NPCs such as Space Marine Captains, Eldar Archons and Tau Commanders, the GM should assign a Inf/PF/Inf/Rk using the example tables and ten determine how much of their forces are committing to this battle.

2. Bid Forces. From the total of Forces points each side has to spare, each character commits a narrative amount of his force in points. The player and the GM keep this secret from each other, as neither general necessarily knows what the other is doing. The amount of points bid should be a representative of what the player is trying to do - for instance, a team of ratling scouts trying to gauge enemy positions would take few points, whereas a massed deep strike terminator assault would be a hefty point bid.

3. Roleplaying Tactics. Each character describes their tactical Maneuver. The characters roll initiative, using intelligence bonus instead of AG, to see who's forces go first. Whoever has better tactics - this can be arbitrated by the GM or

Put up to a vote - gets a +20 bonus to the opposed tactics test.

4. Opposed Tactics Test. If both fail, the bid Forces are lost and a new round begins. If there is a tie of DoS, whoever bid more Forces wins. The number of forces points bid is dealt to the other in Damage. This encourages one to ration their forces wisely, as a general who commits too much without knowing what he is up against could suffer the devastating loss of both his own troops and the damage caused by his foe.

5. Tactical interception. If the losing participant lost more than 10 forces in a round, his attacker can make a Logic test to suss out his movements. In this case, the GM should reveal one clue about enemy movements, providing a narrative bonus to next rounds Tactical Roleplaying as the player is better able to outmaneuver his opponent. Other Skill Tests, such as Tracking or Interrogation can also provide this bonus.

8. Triage phase. If a winning player chooses to figure out new tactics, this gives his enemy time to regroup. If a player uses the Tactical interception action, the enemy gains the benefit of a triage action, allowing a relevant skill check to restore a number of forces points equal to the characteristic bonus plus one for every degree of success. A relevant check should be different per faction - for example, Necrons would use tech-use made by a Necron lord, while

Space Marines would use Medicae performed by an apothecary.

Additional Action: Feat of Heroism. One per battle, a player character or notable NPC may call a Feat of Heroism, triggering a roleplaying encounter. GMs should limit these to one per player, as otherwise combat can become tedious with encounter. Canny players might also use their Feats of Heroism in tandem with each other to double their effectiveness. Feats of Heroism are useful for groups that share one Profit Factor and therefore all command one force, such as Rogue Traders, as therefore while one character may be more suited to commanding the others won’t miss their time to shine.

9. Next Turn. Complete the previous stages until one side withdraws or is destroyed. A war is considered over once either side no longer has any Forces left to draw upon. At the Gm’s discretion, slaying an enemy commander through a Feat of Heroism may prevent that foe regrouping for a subsequent battle, even if they till possess Forces points – factions that are suitably destabilized should be those prone to disorganization or leader idolatry, such as Chaos Space Marine warbands or Dark Eldar Kabals.

+EXAMPLE+

General Marcus (Influence 70) of the Death Korps of Krieg has declared war on the Black Legionnaires of Lord Khjarlzax, who has come to attack the Vladic Sector. The battle is taking place in the ruins of Hive Vimalus. In this case, General Marcus uses the Profile for an Imperial Guard Senior Officer, whereas Khjarlzax uses the Profile for a Chaos Lord, although either could be represented by a player character depending on the circumstances. The following battle is an example of a conflict where each side only has one source of Forces, such as a Rogue Trader group with shared Profit Factor or an Only War squad with shared Reknown.

1. Note Forces. Marcus has other elements of his regiment off-world that he must sustain, so he only commits 40 Influence into his forces. Khjarlzax, on the other hand, has nothing to lose, committing 50 of his Influence. In the bidding sage, the GM rules that Marcus has access to various specialized units such as Inquisitorial Storm Troopers and armored vehicles, but no extremely elite forces such as Grey Knights or Titans. Similarly, while Khjarlzax possesses many hordes of Chaos Space Marines, he only possesses a few suits of Terminator Armor and little armored support.

2. Bid Forces and Roleplaying. Marcus sends a light crew of scouts ahead, trying to guage a position on the enemy forces. He points out that the scouts are lightly armored and moving in the cover of the ruins, forgoing armored support for stealth. For this reason, he only bids 5 Forces. In contrast, Khjarlzax is sending a first wave of Chaos Space Marines through the ruins, rushing to get into melee. He bids 15 Forces. After roleplaying, the GM arbitrates that Marcus’s tactics are superior, maximizing both cover and size to his advantage, while the marines’ movements are hindered by the ruins and their power armor. Marcus gains the +20 bonus to his Tactics test.

3. Opposed Test. Marcus rolls against a 90 (Int 45+ Tactica Imperialis+20 +20+5) whereas Khjarlzax rolls against a Tactics (Assault Doctrine+10) Skill of 70 (Int 45+10+15). Marcus rolls a 34 whereas Khjarlzax rolls a 65. Khjarlzax suffers 5 points of Damage, taking a total of 20 damage to his Forces! The scouting party has used all of their advantages, throwing grenades into tight locations and maximizing choke points. It appears Khjarlzax has bet too much too quickly.

4. Tactical Interception. Marcus decides that this is an excellent time to gauge the enemy position, using his Logic Skill to deduct the enemy base from the attackers’ trail. In this instance, because he does not have Logic Trained, he asks the GM if he can instead try to interrogate a surviving Chaos Space Marine. The GM rules that a small scouting party would not have the resources to adequately extract information from one of the Angels of Death, and no Tactical Interception is made.

5. Feat of Heroism. Marcus spends his Feat of Heroism to personally interview the survivor. This is conducted as an encounter, pitting his Scrutiny vs. the Black Legionnaire’s Deceive Skill. During the roleplaying, Marcus rolls a 92 on his Scrutiny Test, a failure of 3 degrees, while the Traitor Marine rolls a 27 on his Deceive Skill. The GM arbitrates that, because the Chaos Space Marine devilishly deceives Marcus, he tells General Marcus that the Black Legion is planning to send a scouting wave of human cultist auxiliaries. Also, due to the time taken to escort the prisoner back to the Guard base, the GM decides that the Black Legion gains the benefit of a Triage action.

6. Triage. Khjarlzax makes a Forbidden Lore (Daemonology Test) to summon daemonic reinforcements, but fails his Skill Test, resulting in nought.

The final Forces count is Marcus at 40 and Khjarlzax at 30.

NEW ROUND! DING DING!

2. Bid Forces and Roleplaying. Marcus “knows” that the Black Legion is sending teams of cultists, so decides that the best way to thwart their small-arms fire is with an armored fist. As such, he bids 15 forces, representing teams of rank and file guardsmen in Chimera APCs. However, Khjarlzax, believing cover-camping scout teams to be his foe, deploys a fleet of elite Raptors into the fray, committing 10 Forces. The GM rules that Marcus has been totally wrong-footed by his false intel, and that his lasgun infantry are ill prepared for an armored aerial attack. Similarly, the maneuverable raptors have the advantage over the slow, large Chimeras. In this round, Khjarlzax gains the +20 Bonus.

3. Roll-off. Marucs rolls against a 80 (45+20+15) while Khjarlzax rolls against an 70 (45+20+10). Note that Khjarlzax does not use his Assualt Tactics+10, instead employing his Aerial Assualt Tactics which has no bonus. Marcus rolls an 89 while Khjarlzax rolls a 14 – ouch! The Raptors tear into the sides of the Chimeras with grenades bombs and handheld metlas – after that, the unfortunate guardsmen are eviscerated by their tearing claws and chainblades. Marcus suffers 25 damage.

4. Tactical Intercpetion. Khjarlzax intends to give Marcus no time to regroup, preferring to press inwards with a second wave of traitor legionnaires. Khjarlzax does not use a Tactical Interception action.

5. Marcus is unable to use a Triage Action.

The final forces count is Marcus at 15 and Khjarlzax at 30.

NEW ROUND! DING DING!

2. Bid Forces and Roleplaying. Marcus can see that Khjarlzax has no intent of slowing down his attack and cries for a fall back, fortifying the hive ruins with trenches and gun emplacements. He bids all of his remaining 15 Forces, setting up as many defensive heavy weapon teams and Leman Russ battle tanks as he can. In contrast, Khjarlzax opts to deploy the remainder of his 30 forces in a final charge, making an assault consisting of the remaining Chaos Space Marines and his own retinue of Terminators. After much deliberation, the GM grants Marcus the +20 bonus, for the guardsmen have time to set up superior defenses, while Khjarlzax’s choice of a Terminator vanguard is slow and allows extra time for them to fortify.

3. Roll-Off. Marcus makes his Tactica Imperialis+20 Roll of 100 (45+20+20+15), while Khjarlzax rolls his Assault Doctrine+10 against an 85 (45+10+30). Marcus rolls an 88, while Khjarlzax rolls a 68. It’s a slim margin with tied degrees of success, but due to the superior size and equipment of Khjarlzax’s wave, Khjarlzax wins the roll-off! Against the tactical odds, Khjarlzax’s terminators move up and decimate Marcus with 30 damage, destroying his forces.

4. Feat of Heroism. Seeing his chance to prevent future battles by killing the enemy commander, Khjarlzax uses his Feat of Heroism and appears at the forefront of his vanguard, challenging Marcus to a duel of arms. Marcus denies and attempts to flee, resulting in an intense chase to a nearby Valkyrie gunship. The Gm forces many rolls, including opposed Agility Tests between Marcus and Khjarlzax, and Tech-Use tests to repair a damaged Aquila lander. In the end, the attempt it successful and Marcus escapes.

The Final Draw: Khjarlzax 30, Marcus 0.

Next Time: If Marcus wished to draw the remainder of his forces and attack again, he could commit any of his remaining Influence to a second battle, along with both sides benefitting from a Triage action in between.

Neat system, but you should probably come up with some system by which profit factor is restored as it were. Wars are expensive sure, but a rogue trader is generally going to be doing so to earn money out of the endevor. Most rogue traders are going to LOSE a great deal of profit factor on this sort of system are they not? Considering that even in a major endevor, they're not earning more than 5-10 profit factor at a go. This system is risking vast amounts of profit factor at a go on both sides...

So I think there needs to be some kind of measure for 'previously bought assets'. After all, a rogue trader's profit factor is just a measure of how much PULL they can draw down in resources. It represents investments more than anything else.

Sure, if I'm drawing up a vast force out of friggin NO WHERE. Then I'm going to have to burn profit factor to get the ball rolling. But what about when I'm only using my previously bought forces? The things I've already made acquisition rolls for? What about my ship? My personal guard? The various vehicles I've purchased? Etc.

How would we use them to effect 'Forces'?

3. Roleplaying Tactics. Each character describes their tactical Maneuver. The characters roll initiative, using intelligence bonus instead of AG, to see who's forces go first. Whoever has better tactics - this can be arbitrated by the GM or

Put up to a vote - gets a +20 bonus to the opposed tactics test.

This isn't roleplay, it's asking the player to make a clever-sounding argument and get a bonus based on whether the GM or the players think that his argument is more clever-sounding than the other side's. That has nothing to do with doing what your character would do and everything to do with being good at persuasive argumentation. For example: In the first round of the example, Marcus bothers to point out that his troops are lightly armored and foregoing armored support for the sake of stealth, but Khjarlzax (whose name is hard to spell and will henceforth be called

In round two, Marcus is sending APCs with longrange weapons against raptors who will be descending from the sky, armed with nothing but short range weapons and with a whole mess of extremely open space (literally empty air) between themselves and their targets. Chimeras have some pretty powerful guns (they are vehicle mounted, after all) and have good odds of ripping raptors right to shreds before they can get in range to use any of their weapons. Marcus may have guessed his opponents intentions wrong, but Carl did too, and Marcus' response is just as effective against Carl's raptors as against oncoming cultists.

The tactics are exactly the same but they sound very different when couched in the terms of a clever argument, don't they? Worse, you're encouraging people to get to arguing with each other and the GM about whose tactics are better, shooting clever arguments back and forth at one another instead of playing a game or a role.

You're also delegating the tactics to both roleplay and dice rolls. What happens if Side A's plan is something worthy of Sun Tzu and Side B's plan is bone-headed and counterproductive, but Side B rolls really well and Side A rolls really poorly? Or Side B has a much higher mechanical bonus? Generally speaking these things should either be left up to roleplay entirely or else left up to mechanics entirely. Obviously in the latter case you shouldn't just not roleplay at all, but just because you're roleplaying doesn't mean the roleplay is a deciding factor. A lot of roleplay is in fact just looking at the results and writing out an explanation for why things happened the way they did. The more roleplay you do before the die is rolled, the more likely you are to write yourself into a corner with regards to explaining the actual outcome. Systemizing that you do a large chunk of your roleplay before an important die roll is thus not the best idea.

Basically what I'm getting at is that the entire third phase should just be ripped out. You already have a tactics roll, let your players roleplay because roleplaying is fun rather than trying to whack them over the head with rules. Mechanics should inspire roleplay rather than demanding it, because when you try to demand roleplay, usually what you get is stifled roleplay instead. If what you want is your players to be coming up with clever plans, well then you're going to need a system complex enough to have clever plans in it. You need a system to interact with in order to get clever plans instead of clever-sounding arguments, and if the system is well-designed those clever plans will be intuitive and won't require munchkinery to figure out (note: well-designed systems are really hard which is why most people are totally fine with just roleplaying results, and as an added bonus this also lets players who aren't tactical geniuses play the role of a tactical genius).

It's also weird that no amount of point bid makes the slightest bit of difference unless there's a tie in the tactics test. So the fact that you sent deepstriking terminators against a ragtag band of Chaos cultists doesn't make the slightest difference so long as the person behind the Chaos cultists can make a clever argument that those cultists are using terrain to their advantage and get the tactics bonus, even though they're horribly outmatched by their enemy. The amount of forces you bid should have some impact on the roll, although this does then run into the problem that you have little incentive not to bid the maximum amount possible. My recommendation, have the combat revolve around a fixed number of rounds. Whoever wins the majority of the rounds wins, period, and once you bid forces you don't get them back. Those troops are deployed to one objective and can't be deployed to another.

To shadowclasper: To clarify, profit factor spent on Forces isn't lost as Profit Factor. You simply suffer a penalty during the war. So, for instance, if a Rogue Trader with 40 PF spend 20 on a war, during the war he will suffer a -20 penalty to all acquisition tests, but his profit factor is still effectively 40 and after the war the penalty will be removed.

Lupa, what changes would you recommend to tighten up the system and eliminate discrepancies in the plotting phase?

I agree with Lupa about force comittment.

I'd say that each war should have a clear goal outlined, make it like a miny endevor.

The war might be "You want to control the planet" to control the planet you need to meet the following goals:
-Secure a landing zone

-Conquer Hab Centers A B and C (each requiring it's own force commitment)

-Secure the thing that makes the planet valuable in the first place.

-Conquer the Enemy Base of Operations.

Further, it might be able to be broken down further into theaters. Initial war, middle war, end game. Each one requires husbanding forces, but you only get to change your investment in the conflict at the end of each theater. Each of them has clear objectives. The players get to suggest a few, and even get to declare force commitments for subobjectives that will help or hinder the primary objectives they're trying to secure to win that theater of the war. If the player can't win a clear victory in a theater, then that effects the next theater, changing the objectives from pressing the attack, to trying to pull out with most of your forces intact or just holding out until reinforcements can be brought in.

Further, the rogue traders can take special missions to improve things. For example, they might assault the enemy's orbital armada with their ship as an actual battle rather than a full blown war front. That could give him a bonus to his forces in the rest of the conflict simply for having orbital superiority.

I mentioned it briefly in the earlier post, but to reiterate: the third phase can just be removed completely. You already have a tactics roll, so just use that. This also means that a player can be a brilliant tactician without actually being one yourself, which is good because being someone who's good at what you're not is fairly popular in almost all forms of roleplay. That does leave rules in the fifth phase dangling, but you can just get your +20 bonus there for knowing about enemy movements instead of getting a narrative bonus that could be auto-win or completely useless depending entirely on how much weight your GM decides to give it when listening to clever arguments.

To ammend this idea. Players get a bonus equal to half their force allocation (rounded down) to an objective, to represent a greater investment of resources, but not so much that it can overwhelm better tactics.

So, I begin a war. I'm told "the enemy is well entrenched. This war will take atleast 3 theaters"

Theater 1: Orbital War

-Secure the orbital dock yards

-Secure the lunar station

-Obliterate the enemy's space forces (either done in mass combat, or by a normal space combat mission)

-Destroy orbital defenses

-Secure Landing Zone on the planet.

Theater 2: The Big Land War

-Secure Habitable Zone 1

-Secure Habitable Zone 2

-Secure Habitable Zone 3

-Secure Resources

-Secure Processing center X

-Locate all Enemy Strongholds

-Crack Enemy Communications Encryption

Theater 3: Breaking the Enemy's Hold

-Purge Enemy Base

-Secure Military Star/Airport

-Disrupt Enemy Supply Routes

-Take the Enemy's Capital

-Clear out skirmishers in controlled zones.

So during each theater, I'm told of these objectives, and I might only be told a few initial ones depending on how indepth I want to go with this. For each objective, I'm going to assign forces from the forces I have allocated for this particular theater.

I declare which operations I'm running for this segment of the theater. The theater ends only when BOTH sides have declared how much they're allocating to each resource. I don't have to allocate resources to something right away in a war, I can instead decide to hold off on an objective until later on. Doing so gives the enemy a chance to 'hold' it. They'll get +10 to the tactical bonus if they secure an objective before I contest it (but the theater is not over UNTIL I contest it, or deliberately give it up). Any places where I win the roll, I get half of my allocated forces back to spend on objectives I left until later. Any objectives I contested and lost however, I do not get to redistribute at this point in the Theater. The half of the forces left behind from any victory is made up of casualties and also holding the objective after the fact. Half of the forces are NOT returned in the case of a tied roll that results in victory. It has to be a clear victory (at least 1 degree of success greater than the opponent)

If the theater has not yet closed, I can RECONTEST objectives. But the opponent takes a +10 bonus to their tactical rolls (ontop of their entrenchment bonus) for that objective due to moral benefits, knowing the terrain, and having met the enemy. The attacker can, of course, roleplay things to get their own bonuses to compensate.

A theater ends in victory or defeat depending on how many objectives each side has garnered, and when all objectives have been contested at least once. Each theater should end with an actual mission that becomes the deciding factor in the theater.

For example, let's say that I actually LOSE the first theater, the orbital war. I can still, potentially, move onto the 2nd theater, but it requires a mission to do so, and I'll have a harder time.

When you win a theater, you may allocate however many more or less force points that you want to the next theater. You have the high ground as it were. If you lose. You may only add in as many points as you had at the beginning of the previous theater, plus any points you allocated to victories. So If I lost a theater, losing most of the objectives, after bidding a total of 50 forces, and only 10 of those forces won battles, then I can only bid up to 60 points in the next theater. My opponent can bid as many or as few as they want.

edit: I should note, no theater should have an even number of objectives ever.

edit2: You can probably limit the number of objectives able to be contested at a time by the number of 'officers' on each side. EG: the PCs and their opposite numbers.

Clarity nitpick: A "theater" is usually understood to mean one of multiple regions of conflict happening simultaneously. This is not technically what the word means, but since laypeople usually only hear it in reference to WW2, with its simultaneous European and Pacific theaters (nobody ever talks about North Africa for some reason), this is how it's understood. A different word should probably be used for the stages of a war.

I've played with 3 different systems for adjudicating "wars." My players really liked The Frozen Reaches as it was written. BFK got lots of boos. I've run hordes...universally despised by my players. Hey, it's tough to find something everyone likes.

I'm getting ready to start yet another campaign, and I've drawn up yet another system. We will see how it goes over. If it flops, I'll fall back to Frozen Reachers, however front-loaded the work on it is.

My newest system has many similarities to yours Crystal. We do some calculations and come up with a modifier for a single contested tactics roll per engagement. It's still rather vague and I kinda like it that way. More than happy to share it with you if you want to correspond.