Roll Under/Over Micro Systems

We recently had a session where one player didn't show up for an Edge of the Empire game, and the previous session had ended on an important scene right before a combat encounter.  So the GM surprised us by showing up, tossing some gum on the table, and announcing that we'd be playing a quick one-shot of a game called All Outta Bubblegum (a quick search couldn't locate the rules, but follow the link to a relevant blog post).  This turned out to only last about an hour and a half, leaving us time to test out another simple game I'd been interested in, Lasers and Feelings.

Both of these are extremely simple RPG systems less than a page in length.  Both have a binary mechanic where you roll a single die and in certain situations you want to roll over a certain number, whereas in others you want to roll under.  In All Outta Bubblegum that number changes over the course of the session creating an interesting pacing mechanism.  In Lasers and Feelings it stays the same, defining your main "stat."

All Outta Bubblegum starts you with 8 pieces of gum and you roll under (on a d10) to do something mundane, roll over to do something kickass.  You can spend a piece of gum for an autosuccess.  Once you're out of gum you can only succeed at kickass tasks.  Check out the blog post linked above for the nuance this provides.  We didn't really see that in play, but we did emphasize the resource-management aspect of it, and the game did tend toward an arc that made it easier and easier to be kickass.  There was an interesting meta-game wherein you try to make sure you have some pieces of gum left at the end just in case, but you still want it to be relatively easy to kickass.  It creates a tension unique to this system, and it was an interesting change of pace.  If you're intrigued, I'd suggest playing it as a beer-and-pretzels game.  Yeah, I know I didn't link the rules, but based on my experience that blog post is really all you need to play.  There's also an episode of the One Shot Podcast (episodes 20-21) that inspired my GM to choose this system (I also listen to this podcast, but I haven't personally listened to that episode).

Lasers and Feelings has one mechanical stat for each PC, which is their number.  The number ranges from 2-5, with 2 being slanted heavily towards "Feelings" and 5 being slanted heavily towards "Lasers."  3 and 4 are for more balanced PCs.  Basically, if an action falls under the broad category of Feelings then you want to roll over your number on a d6.  If Lasers is more appropriate to the action, you want to roll under your number.  You can get more dice by being prepared, being an expert, or having someone assist you.  If your exact number is rolled then you have Laser-Feelings, which doesn't count as a success but does allow you to ask a question about the situation to gain some more insight.  Since you'll often be rolling multiple dice you can also get multiple successes (1 success has complications, 2 is great, and 3 is a critical success).  For our session we played a Futurama game, where I played Professor Farnsworth (number 5), and the other two PCs were Dr. Zoidberg (number 3) and Fry (number 2).  The system supported that setting thematically, and resulted in a lot of slapstick, ridiculous humor.  We ended up shrinking Fry down to enter the bottom end of Kiff's digestive tract where he battled worms who were trying to mind control Kiff into destroying the Professor's latest doomsday device, destroying the quantum tunnel in the process.

Whereas All Outta Bubblegum's core mechanic created an interesting pacing and resource management meta-game, Lasers and Feelings offers a really simple but surprisingly flexible party-game that self-generates character development, more strongly emphasizing the "roll-playing" part of a Roll Playing Game.  All in all, both were interesting experiences.

In the back of my mind I'm often thinking about what would be a good RPG to play while backpacking (I have yet to actually play an RPG while backpacking, but it's still something I'd like to have in my back pocket).  Either of these would make strong candidates, and seem far more practical than any other alternative I've thought of so far.  Especially Lasers and Feelings, considering those mini D6s that are pretty easy to find, and weigh almost nothing...

Number Inflation in 13th Age

Considering how frequently I write about it on this blog (with the exception of the past couple of months; blame a creative dry spell), it should come as no surprise that 13th Age is one of my favorite RPGs right now.  My first long-term campaign went up to 5th level (barely), but it stretched each level out over a long period of time.  An Incremental Advance every 2-3 sessions.  For our current campaign (which features rotating GMs), we've been awarding an Incremental Advance every session, and after the 3rd one we gain a level.  We've just now reached the same point at which I ended the last campaign - level 5 - but one of the explicit goals has been to experience high level play.

I already dislike it.  Granted I've never preferred high level play in D&D, but 13th Age is especially egregious with its number inflation.  Unfortunately, it's sort of a double-edged sword because the numbers scale the way that they do precisely to maintain an even progression over the course of a PC's adventuring career.  In other words, damage scales at about the same rate as HP.  Since you gain a weapon die for damage every level, HP has to become pretty inflated to keep up.  While I haven't crunched the numbers in detail, my experience seems to be that PCs will drop after suffering around the same number of hits from an appropriately challenging foe regardless of level.  In most editions of D&D it seemed like low-level characters were quite fragile, but at higher levels they could soak up more attacks due to their increasingly-inflating HP (to the point that high-level combat skewed even further toward "rocket tag" of save or die/suck abilities to bypass HP entirely).  This smooth-scaling in 13th Age is desirable to me, but I really wish it could be more tightly bounded (like, and I can't believe I'm saying this, D&D 5E).

So why is this even a big deal?  Well, mostly because when you start dealing with bigger numbers, the math gets just a tad slower.  I've noticed that my PC's turns go a little slower than at low levels (though at least one player doesn't think it's a big deal), but the real annoyance has been GMing.  I've got at least as many monsters to run as there are PCs in the party (and usually more), and I like to get through NPC turns quickly to maintain momentum.  I feel like those few extra seconds per NPC (per turn) starts to add up, and I occasionally find that it distracts me from interesting tactical and narrative embellishments in combat.

A Possible Solution

Obviously I'm not going to stop playing 13th Age because of this.  And as much as I prefer the alternative of "bounded accuracy" espoused by D&D 5E, from what I've seen of 5E so far 13th Age simply hits way more of my other preferences in an RPG.  Besides that, my group has been instictively negative toward 5E despite knowing little to nothing about it.

Thus, I'd like to try to make high-level play in 13th Age more manageable.  Based on the numbers that were being thrown around in last night's session (again, this is at level 5), I'm considering simply rounding monster HP and player damage to the nearest 5.  None of this "always round down in D&D" legacy crap, either.  Standard rounding rules simply make more sense because theoretically you should be rounding up about as often as you round down, and so your rounding would effectively "cancel" each other out.  Obviously results will skew slightly up or down in any given combat, but is this really any different from earlier editions of D&D where monsters got variable HP by rolling Hit Dice?

Example:

Barbarian: "I crit for 94 damage" (because that literally happened last night, on the first attack, vs a 200 HP dragon)

GM: mentally rounds that up to 95 and notes that the dragon has 105 HP left

Wizard: "I deal 32 damage with Ray of Frost."

GM: Rounds that down to 30, so the dragon's at 75 now.

Multiples of 5 are easy, because we deal with them every single day.  I have to think for a couple of seconds longer when I subtract 94 from 200, and if I'm starting from a value that's not an easy multiple it takes longer still.  Like, say, subtracting 32 from that dragon that now has 106 HP if tracked by RAW.  In my head I would generally do this in 2 steps by first subtracting 30 from 106, and then subtracting 2 from 76.  Which is tougher if I'm dealing with odd numbers, and tougher still when one or more players is talking (especially if they're correcting their damage, whether that's from math errors or forgotten bonuses.  Sometimes I have to start the mental math over from scratch when that happens).

Some people might be faster at mental math than me, and others still might not be but don't mind the cumulative time lost.  For me though?  Rounding seems like a really promising solution, because those huge numbers are just an unnecessary amount of granularity.

The Gumshoe Precedent

After coming up with this solution, I was reminded of a rule from the Gumshoe game "Night's Black Agents."  To quote from page 215 which is a summary of Hit Threshold Modifiers: "In games using the full range of options and tactical rules, Hit Thresholds can vary widely.  Try to rebalance those values if you can: if one combatant has a Hit Threshold of 7 and one has a Hit Threshold of 9, run their combat as if they had Hit Thresholds of 3 and 5, respectively.  This keeps fights shorter and more dangerous, and therefore more exciting."

This is particularly useful to keep in mind in Night's Black Agents because the die that you use to resolve actions is a d6.  The principle isn't as mechanically necessary in 13th Age, but it sure helps to simplify that math.  You're effectively treating each increment of 5 as a value of 1, turning a 100 HP creature into one with effectively 20 HP.  That 30 damage attack becomes 6 damage.  14 out of 20 is the exact same ratio as 70 out of 100.

Once you get into Epic tier and the numbers get higher still, it will become practical to mentally round to the nearest 10.  I'm not quite sure where the best cut off points will be (I haven't playtested this yet), but I'm thinking it will probably feel pretty intuitive once you start dealing with numbers of a certain size.

Also worth noting is that you don't have to necessarily institute a sweeping house rule for this.  You don't even have to tell your players you're doing it.  Just do the conversion to simplify the math, and they may never be the wiser.  It's the best of both worlds, actually:  your players get to feel uber powerful by throwing around high damage attacks, but by rounding the values you don't have to deal with the mathematical challenges of quickly adding and subtracting high value numbers to the nearest one.

Improvised Chases (System Neutral)

For gamers coming from a D&D background, chase scenes are often overlooked.  Many D&D players simply don't run chases, or when they do they resort to speed comparisons, or counting squares while taking potshots with ranged attacks or spells.  Many powerful control spells will outright end a chase by immobilizing one side or slowing them down.  In other words, when chases do come up they are dry and soulless affairs.

Granted, this might not be everyone's experience, but these are the solutions that make the most obvious use of the rules of the more recent editions of D&D.  I'm sure plenty of GM's ignore the square counting and go for a more skill-challenge type solution.  But skill challenges (as presented in 4E D&D) have their own set of problems, namely that the strict number of failures vs number of successes doesn't necessarily match the narrative description of the scene.  If a skill should end the challenge even if the requisite number of successes hasn't been reached, the GM will usually either fudge it and say that the players succeed, or you'll get frustrated players who don't feel like their specific actions mean anything more than "checking a box."

I know I never really had many chases in my games, but recently I've been sprinkling them in.  In general, I've been using a modified version of the Thriller Chase rules of the Gumshoe game "Night's Black Agents."  The framework works really well for virtually any system, ignoring of course the Gumshoe-specific rules.  The result is a narrative, fast-paced system for resolving chases with skill checks.

• First, create a chase track.  I like to have the PCs start at a value of 0, and track lead by going up or down on the track.  A good default is to cap the track at +/-5.  If one or more PC gets to 5, they win.  If all PCs get to -5, they lose.  This works regardless of whether they're pursuing or pursued (just inject whatever narrative description fits the scene).  
• Most importantly, describe a dynamic environment and let the PCs react to it.  Picture each round as a leg of the chase that takes place in a discrete scene.  Running through a busy city street, a pursuing NPC might make a check to convince guards/police (or upstanding citizens) to stop the PCs.  The key here is to not let the chase devolve into "I sprint," "ok, roll Athletics," etc.  That's the equivalent of fighting generic orcs in a featureless 30x30 room.  As a GM, you'll probably have to play the NPC as a proactive party, actively creating problems/opposition that the PCs are forced to react to.  
• Each "leg" or point of lead is a narrative unit; it doesn't have to equal a specific number of feet or squares.  The chase is broken up into units of "interesting scenes," and each scene should be summarized with a single skill check for all parties involved.
• As a baseline, a successful skill check will bring the PC up 1 step on the chase track.  A failure will drop them down 1 step.  Conversely, a success by the NPC (or group of NPCs) might bring all PCs down 1 step, and a failure bring all PCs up 1 step.  Depending on the narrative, multiple NPCs might only effect one or some PCs.  
• If the difficulty of a check is going to be harder than typical (i.e. the action is riskier), reward that by letting a success increase the lead by 2.  Don't get too generous with this option, and typically only use it if there is an easier alternative and the contrast between the options is noticeable.  A failure doesn't necessarily have to drop the PC down by 2, though.  Equally interesting is a penalty to their next skill check, or even a penalty to an ally's check.  Feel free to adjust the "pacing" of the track if the chase stalls or seems to look like it's going to be a back-and-forth for a long time.  
• The option of increasing/decreasing lead by multiple increments could also be used if the system has a "degrees of success" mechanic, even if it's as simple as a "crit" (natural 20) in a d20 system.  Things like succeeding with style in Fate, great/extraordinary successes in TOR, or getting a raise in Savage Worlds would apply here.
• If the system uses a resource-management mechanic (like Vancian spells), feel free to grant an auto-success for the expenditure of resources, or at least force the NPC to make a difficult skill check that can benefit the party (will increase their position), but won't set them back if the NPC succeeds.

These rules/guidelines don't necessarily have to represent an obvious chase.  In an Edge of the Empire game that I ran, I had the PCs racing to a base along a fortified ridge top so that they could grab a ship and escape the planet they were on.  Meanwhile, moving up the canyon below them was a battalion of Imperial walkers that would surely destroy the base if they got their first.  The PCs were being tracked by a large native cat-like creature, and had to contend with turrets and patrols on the way to the base (the PCs were a "third party" in this conflict; in other words, both groups were out to get them!).  Then once they were inside, they had to fight their way to the hangar as the walkers got there!  For some scenes (or "legs" of the chase) a quick combat encounter took the place of skill checks.

So give it a try next time you have to run a chase scene.  If it's completely on-the-fly, consider dropping the chase track down to +/-4, or even 3, because that will keep the number of scenes that you'll need to come up with to a minimum.  Note that a +/-3 could be resolved in as few as 2 "rounds," but if there's more back and forth it might take longer.  If you need to adjust the pace, make the next scene harder if the PCs are doing better that you anticipated, or easier if they're floundering (especially the latter!).  If it starts to get repetitive or you run out of scenes, better to end the chase in an exciting way (some sort of complication?) than slog through the chase track just for the sake of finishing it.  This isn't meant to be a hard-and-fast resolution system; it's more of a tool for the GM to ballpark their pacing.

Mazarbul Bestiary: Large Solo Black Dragon

After reading a series of articles about re-structuring the way solo monsters are handled in D&D 4E at The Angry DM (The D&D Boss Fight Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4), I began to think about how this concept might be applied to 13th Age.  In short, the Boss Fight system consists of splitting a solo monster stat block into 3 different stat blocks with 1/3 of the HP of an appropriate solo.  This splits the fight into 3 stages which keeps the fight dynamic and provides a better sense of progress.  Later-design (post MM3) sensibilities are also followed, such as increasing the action economy, spreading out solo actions, and giving them resistances to certain control conditions.

In 13th Age solo monsters don't really exist as their own discrete category.  Rather, a Large monster is designed to be as powerful as two same-level normal monsters, and a Huge monster is the equivalent of three same-level monsters.  In practice, I've found that they don't function that well if run as true solos, though I have heard of people using monsters several levels higher than the party as solos and having it work.

Another key to a good solo battle is a dynamic environment, which is covered in the D&D Boss Fight articles but also addressed directly within the monster design with the Worldbreaker system on the blog At-Will.  Consider the difference between a generic fight with a red dragon in its treasure hoard where it simply trades blows with the party (given that a major complaint about 4E solos is that they were just "sacks of hit points" leads me to believe that this is a common scenario) and the action-packed final sequence from The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (which, while arguably over-the-top, would make a pretty awesome RPG boss battle).

To kick things off I'll design a solo version of a Large Black Dragon, which is a Double-Strength Large  (yep, I'm stacking them) 6th Level wrecker in the core rulebook.  I've taken elements from both Boss Fight and Worldbreaker, though I've opted to keep things simple and avoid splitting the dragon up into 3 separate stat blocks when just 1 will do.  Mechanically, the Solo Speed trait does a lot of the heavy lifting in terms of making this Large creature function as two enemies without changing around the dragon's attacks too much, as it now acts on two different initiative slots.  While debilitating control effects are less of an issue in 13th Age compared with 4E, Draconic Toughness is still a good way of preventing the PCs from wrecking its action economy and turning it into a big sack of hit points to be beaten down with impunity.

Some notable changes from the published stat block are the replacement of ongoing damage from the dragon's main attack to a more narrative secondary effect that lets the dragon use its environment to its advantage.  The effect of having 3 stat blocks is replicated by the addition of two special trigger powers that separate the 3 stages of the battle.  While somewhat clunky, negating overflow damage on the dragon and the PC respites (both from Boss Fight) are written directly into these powers; this is probably less clunky than 3 stat blocks, though.  The first trigger power also increases the frequency of the secondary trigger on the dragon's main attacks (in later stages it's no longer toying around with the PCs, but trying to use the environment to wreck them), and the second trigger power swaps out the Draconic Grace trait with Acidify Environment.  By stage 3, the dragon is injured and desperate, bleeding and spitting acid just about everywhere.  It should probably be making judicious efforts to escape unless the PCs are hanging on by a thread.

As far as balance is concerned, the fact that this dragon is getting two free action trigger powers might make it seem more powerful than 2 regular large black dragons, but the PC respites probably balance this out, plus there's the fact that 2 dragons would have two chances of using Draconic Grace each round.  The solo is probably a little tougher than 2 core rulebook dragons, but not by as much as it would first appear.  The more hand-wavey, narrative trigger of the dragon's main attack also gives the GM more leeway to take it easy if the party is having a tough time, or really showcase the danger of the environment if they're doing too well.

Large Solo Black Dragon
Double Strength Large 6th Level Wrecker (Solo)
Initiative +13
Vulnerability: thunder

Traits

This dragon has all of the traits that a Large Black Dragon from pg. 220 of the core book has, including Escalator, Flight, Draconic Grace, Intermittent Breath, Water Breathing, and Resist Acid 16+.  It also has the following Traits:

Solo Superiority:  The Dragon has two initiative slots, one at its rolled initiative result and the other at its rolled initiative +10.  It can make saves at the end of both turns, but it only takes ongoing damage on its first turn (Initiative +10).

Draconic Toughness: All Saves that this dragon makes gain a +5 bonus.  The Dragon immediately rolls a Hard Save (Normal with the bonus) if subjected to the Stunned or Confused condition.  On a success, it's Weakened instead.

Claws, bite, or tail sweep +11 vs AC (2 attacks) - 18 damage
Natural 16+, or Natural Even Hit if ≤ 214 HP: the target is flung into a dangerous or inconvenient environmental hazard.  Choose an option from the Sample Environments section, or improvise your own to match your game's narrative.
Natural even miss: half damage if the target was a different enemy than the last one the dragon attacked, including if the attack made on the dragon's previous turn.
Special: the dragon gains a +4 bonus to AC vs opportunity attacks if it moves after making this attack, including if it uses its first action on its next turn to move.

C: Acid breath +11 vs PD (1d3 nearby enemies) - 20 acid damage, and 10 ongoing acid damage.
Miss: 10 acid damage.

[Special Trigger] Murky water flyby - When the dragon is reduced to 214 HP it disappears (remove it from play), ignoring any damage from the triggering attack that takes it below 214 HP.  Each PC can spend a Recovery and either regain a 1/battle power OR immediately roll to recharge a power.  After 1 round (during which the Escalation Die does not increase), all PCs make a DC 25 Perception check.  If they succeed, they can take an opportunity attack against the dragon.  If they fail, they take 4d6 damage.  Place the dragon anywhere nearby, and give it an additional use of Acid Breath.  Note that the trigger of its claws, bite, or tail sweep attack also changes at this point.

[Special Trigger] Wrath of the injured - When the dragon is reduced to 107 HP it immediately uses Acid breath as a free action, even if it normally would not have any more uses of it, and ignores any damage from the triggering attack that would take it lower than 107.  It also counts as Staggered, loses the Draconic Grace trait, and instead gains the Acidify Environment trait.  Each PC can spend a Recovery after the attack from an increase in morale at seeing the dragon visibly injured.

Acidify Environment: Any enemy that ends its turn adjacent to the dragon automatically takes 10 acid damage.  After one round of possessing this trait, any nearby unengaged enemies also automatically take 5 acid damage.

AC 22
PD 20             HP 320 (214, 107)
MD 18

Example Environments:
Deep Water with Mucky Bottom - The PC makes a DC 20 check to avoid becoming stuck in the muck and to swim to the edge of the deep water in 2 move actions.  If the check beats a DC 25 instead, the PC does this in a single move action.  If they fail, they're stuck underwater until the next turn.
Thrown against a Wall - The PC takes an additional 2d12 damage and is Prone.  Standing up can be done as part of a move action, but if you wants to move anywhere else you must succeed at a Normal Save (11+).  While prone you are Vulnerable to melee attacks, but ranged attacks made against you take a -2 penalty.
Thrown Behind an Obstacle - The PC is on the other side of a pit, a geyser, high on a ledge, thrown off a small cliff, etc.  Usually this will take a DC 25 skill check to overcome the environment in a way that makes narrative sense.  Depending on the environment, a failure should either result in 10 damage or cause the PC to take two move actions instead of one to get back in the fight.

Mazarbul Bestiary: Iron Sea Lobster Behemoth

This is the first article with the "Mazarbul Bestiary" tag.  This series is pretty self-explanatory; I'll provide unique monsters, enemies, or NPCs for the various game systems that I cover.  We'll kick things off with a custom creation for 13th Age.

I created the Iron Sea Lobster Behemoth to be a solo that isn't a solo.  The main body of the creature is a Huge 5th level creature, but it has two claws that act as 4th level spoilers, as well as 6 tentacles that act as a group of 5th level mooks.  So while it's mechanically multiple monsters, it's narratively just one.  This solves the action economy problems of solos in D&D 4E, but it's admittedly not an elegant solution for every large creature.  It works for a giant lobster because everybody's seen crabs walking around on the beach with missing claws, and it's feasible to say that even if the body is killed the claws might still reflexively attack (though I'd advise any GMs running this to just end the encounter when the body is killed, even if there are claws and/or tentacles left).  Plus the tentacles are supposed to evoke a Cthulu-esque vibe.  I certainly wouldn't use this option with a dragon, for example.

Iron Sea Lobster Behemoth Body
Huge 5th Level Troop               Initiative +7
Fear Aura 24 HP
Stomping Scuttle + 10 vs AC (3 attacks) - 18 damage
R Acidic Brine (1d4 nearby enemies in a group) +10 vs PD - 15 acid damage and 5 ongoing.

Resist 16+ Fire

AC 20
PD 19               HP 220
MD 15

Claws x2
4th Level Spoiler                 Initiative +8
Special: the claws can intercept independently
Grabbing Claw +9 vs AC - 14 damage
Natural Even Hit: The target is grabbed (-5 to disengage checks unless the target hits the claw with an attack first, and the target cannot make opportunity attacks or ranged attacks)

AC 21
PD 19             HP 56
MD -

Tentacles x6
5th Level Mook                  Initiative +8
Special: the tentacles can intercept independently
Stinging Grasp + 10 vs PD - 8 damage
16+: The target is also Dazed.

AC 20
PD 18            HP 18, 36, 54, 72, 80, 98
MD -


Building Battles
By default an Iron Sea Lobster Behemoth is most likely going to be encountered on the rocky shores east of the Sea Wall.  As a solo it's designed to work alone, and since it's a pretty mindless, hunger-driven monstrosity it's unlikely to have any allies.  Perhaps it could pop up as a 3rd party during a conflict (drawn by the sounds of battle, or by the scent of blood).  To increase the threat level have the encounter take place in shallow water (or have the tides rapidly flow in during the battle).  This way the claws can hold a PC underwater after they're grabbed, changing the tactical landscape to "lop off that claw before Bob dies!"  Also keep in mind the ability of the claws and tentacles to intercept melee PCs.  The lobster behemoth will do all it can to protect its soft underbelly, and that means keeping potential threats at a distance (or at least Dazed).  It will probably seek out the squishiest PC to make a meal of, softening them up with its acidic brine, but it won't foolishly consume an unconscious meal while being attacked (it may try to drag it underwater though!).

Icons
The Diabolist: While the origins of Iron Sea Lobster Behemoths are unknown (as is the case with most of the monsters that drag their hefty forms out of the Iron Sea), the tolerance that the creatures have for fire have led some to suspect that they're spawned in underwater Hellholes.  The Diabolist probably knows whether or not that's true, but she's not letting anyone else in on her secret.  Some whisper that that's because even though they're of demonic origin, she's failed to control them.
The High Druid: Her forces have been guarding the Dragon Empire (or perhaps more accurately, the Wild Wood) from anything that gets over the Sea Wall.  That includes these creatures, if one were to ever venture far enough from the sea to be a threat.  Oddly enough, smugglers have brought back rumors of druids and their agents going beyond the Sea Wall to take lobster behemoths out.  Such tales lend credence to the "demonic origins" theories, or at the very least suggest that they're not natural.  Or maybe the druids are harvesting body parts for some ritualistic reason...
The Lich King: Didn't expect his name on this list, did you?  He definitely animates skeletons, and exoskeletons are skeletons too.  He's the only icon to have exerted control over lobster behemoths, albeit after they were already dead.

Adventure Hooks
Sea Wall Ruins - A scholar from Horizon has been reading up on the history of the ruins along the Sea Wall, and has reason to believe a legendary weapon lies there, after its wielder was slain defending the doomed fortress.  What he didn't know was that the Iron Sea has recently eroded the shoreline right up to the walls of the fortress, which a lobster behemoth has claimed as its lair.
Quest for Caviar - A druid from the Blood Wood has put a call out to adventurers to collect lobster behemoth eggs.  Several groups have already been sent out, but none have returned yet.  Are the PCs hired by the druid to do what others could not, or by someone else who wants to see what the druid is up to?  Does the High Druid herself even approve of this quest?
Origin Story - A hellhole near the Iron Sea (perhaps the mapped one south of the Spider Wood) has started emanating a briny, sea-air smell.  Has it become flooded?  Is there a lobster behemoth spawning there?  Is the Lich King using this as a staging area for the creation of (exo)Skeleton minions?  What does the Crusader have to say about the prospect of hellholes beneath the surface of the Iron Sea itself?  These are the types of questions you'd have the luxury of asking if your pay grade was higher.  Too bad you're just the guy they hired to scout it out.
Retrieval - Imperial soldiers patrolling the area outside of the fort on Cape Thunder were attacked by a lobster behemoth.  One of them was killed, dragged underwater, and presumably eaten.  Sad as that was, he happened to be carrying something very valuable that his companions would like back.  They're sure as hell not going after the beast themselves, though.

Asteroid Mine Ambush

Introduction
This is the first article with the new "set-pieces" tag.  So what does this tag mean?  Episode 11 of the Order 66 Podcast (titled "The GM Holocron") promotes the idea of GMs keeping a campaign binder filled with various "set pieces," which are generic scenarios that you can inject into your game for when your players go off the rails, or if you tend towards a more improvisational style of GMing.  Each set piece has some enemies statted out that can be re-skinned to fit the current situation, as well as a dynamic environment with plenty of things for the PCs to interact with.  In short, it lets you add "planned" encounters to your game when you're winging it, preventing the boring or unbalanced stuff that a GM may come up with on-the-fly if they're put on the spot and can't think of anything interesting.

Because I've already expanded the scope of this blog since its inception (which was to cover D&D 4E), I'm planning on supporting multiple systems with this tag, and hopefully the set pieces will be generic enough that they can be injected into any game of similar genre.  But to kick things off, we'll keep in theme with Order 66 and do a Star Wars set piece.  Since a common problem that some players have with the system is making space combat exciting, the PCs will be piloting starfighters.

System
FFG's Star Wars: Edge of the Empire (or Age of Rebellion), though it can be pretty easily adapted to any space opera or sci-fi setting.

Scene
The PCs are in a facility that's part of an asteroid mining complex when it's attacked by some capital ships or warships.  There's a starfighter hangar attached, and the PCs need to fly fighters to the main hangar to either get to their own ship, or find a ship with hyperdrive capabilities and escape.

Complications
A defense array with many turrets will funnel the fighters below their scaffolding, forcing everyone to fly amongst pipes, support beams, and some geothermal vents.  This is where all the dogfighting is taking place.  A capital ship is bombarding the main hangar, so there's time pressure to get there before it's destroyed.  Optionally depending on the situation, the facility's inhabitants as well as the attackers are both adversaries to the PCs (I used this in game where the PCs were imprisoned in the facility)

Area
The mining complex is sited on a large asteroid at the edge of an asteroid field.  There are multiple buildings on its surface, but the two main ones that concern the PCs are the one that they're in (which contains a small fighter hangar), and the main hangar.  These buildings are at opposite ends of the defense system; flying above it would be suicide, so the PCs will have to maneuver through the support structures.  Going around the defense system will place them in the asteroid field (the turrets cover all of the clear space), which will not only take longer but may arguably be more dangerous.

Optionally, the PCs may have to fight their way through the starting building to get to the starfighter hangar.  This may be because the attackers boarded the facility already, or the defending inhabitants are simply adversaries of the PCs.  They'll have to make their way through a large warehouse room containing crates upon crates of whatever materials are being mined on the asteroid (the crates stop about 2/3 of the way to the hangar doors, at Medium range from them).  A large pipe has fallen from the ceiling due to a heavy hit from one of the capital ships, and is now on the ground across the warehouse venting hot steam (at Long range from the hangar doors).  A loader crane sits on one side of the room (near the wall left or right of where the PCs start from) just before the pipe, and at the other end of the room are the hangar doors (at Extreme range from the starting point), which can be opened via computer terminals on the walls to either side.

Once the PCs get into their fighters and exit the hangar, they'll need to make it to the main hangar.  While traversing under the defense system, PCs should be faced with at least 3 "checkpoints" where they'll need to make rolls.  The first should be Piloting checks (Normal or Hard) to test how well they're able to maneuver through the support structures (failure should result in a minor collision).  They should also move through an area of heavy dogfighting and be engaged by enemy fighters (with any maneuver requiring a Piloting check while dogfighting amongst the beams and pipes; add setback dice to this), and the third checkpoint should be moving through the geothermal vents (or broken piping that's venting flaming gas).  After making it through, they'll need to either deal with the capital ship, or make it in and out of the hangar before it's completely destroyed.  Remember to lead each "checkpoint" with some colorful narrative description to paint a vivid picture of how these fighters are forced to weave around all of these obstacles.

Once the PCs are in a ship and flying out of the main hangar, they should make a Piloting check as the capital ship blasts half of the exit apart.

Threats
In the facility, the PCs should see the silhouettes of a minion group on the other side of the steaming pipe.  They can sneak past them by using the crates for most of the way, or they might use the crane or computer terminals to their advantage somehow (reward creativity!).  If they stop the steam at one of the terminals, their enemies will know someone's present (but if they don't, they'll need to make Resilience, Coordination, or some other appropriate physical check to resist being scalded when they pass through).  If they give away their position a stronger foe joins the fight (this will probably happen once they leave the cover of the crates even if they successfully bypass the minions).

When I ran this, I used B2 super battle droids for the minions, and a droideka for the strong enemy.  Other options from the core rule book are Apprentice Bounty Hunters and either a Journeyman or Master hunter, Stormtroopers and a Stormtrooper Sergeant, or Pirate Crew and a Pirate Captain.  The Pirates in particular make good generic enemies that can be reskinned as almost anything.  Note that unless the group is very combat-capable, they should probably try to get past the strong enemy as quickly as possible as opposed to killing it.

For the starfighters, make sure that the opposing forces have different types (this is really easy if the attackers are Imperial, as they were when I ran this for my group, since you can simply use TIEs).  It's important that whatever is in the hangar available for the PCs is not hyperspace-capable (because that would defeat the purpose of getting to the main hangar).  CloakShapes and Headhunters are both good options, but I also threw in a double-seater Y-Wing without an astromech to make potentially engaging with a capital ship (I used Nebulon B's) less suicidal.  I've found that running starfighters in minion groups of 2 or 3 makes for more exciting starfighter combat.  Also remember that if the PCs opt to take the asteroid field, you'll want to spice it up by having a squadron of enemy fighters chase them in there.

Triumph
If attacking or being pursued while in the starfighters, blow up some support beams, a pipe, or an asteroid (or fly close to them if just Piloting) such that debris hits enemy ships, causing a minor collision.

In the warehouse, an action that might reasonably cause one of the crates to topple spills crushed ore somewhere really inconvenient for the enemies (perhaps even on top of one of the minions).

Despair
While Piloting, you suffer a major collision after being struck by debris or clipping a structure or asteroid.

If flying through the geothermal vents, the heat causes your cockpit to fog up, impairing vision.

Making the Most out of Knowledge Checks

Knowledge checks can often fall flat in tabletop RPGs, or at least this happens a lot in my games.  Either the GM has information that they'd planned on giving out anyways, in which case calling for a Knowledge check can be a formality (and a frustrating one if it's failed), or the player requests to roll a Knowledge check and, put on the spot, the GM can't think of anything particularly interesting or impactful on the fly.  While it can be cool to play the know-it-all, sometimes you just can't help feeling that you're not getting as much bang for your buck as players who have invested in more "active" skills.

I was skimming through Dungeon World today, and one of the GM Principles stuck with me: "ask [the PCs] questions and use the answers."  Combined with one of the three bullet points on the GM's Agenda, "Play to find out what happens," a GM can make Knowledge checks a lot more interesting and engaging by soliciting player involvement.

What this means is that when a PC asks to roll a Knowledge check and you don't already have something in mind, if they succeed you can ask them to tell you what their character knows about the subject.  If it ends up taking things in a completely different direction than you'd planned, well that's a great embodiment of "play to find out what happens."  As an "explorer" type player, I like to learn details about the fictional world even when I'm GMing, and (for me at least) these types of twists make GMing a lot more enjoyable.

All of the sudden players might be scrambling to pick up some Knowledge skills for the chance to influence the narrative.  There's a real, tangible benefit from the character's knowledge instead of some half-formed "fact" that often ends up being fairly pointless, if not entirely uninteresting, when the GM is forced to come up with something on the spot.  Obviously this could potentially be abusable by certain types of players, and the GM should counter that without devaluing the skill by building off of the player's suggestion to keep it in-line power-wise, and/or varying the difficulty based on the specificity of the information.  And ultimately, a roll should only be made where it's dramatically appropriate; players should know that they can't just knowledge-spam in an attempt to power-game (most players probably wouldn't go for that anyways).

Here are a few examples:

• The party finds an ancient religious text in some old ruins.  Instead of the GM answering a successful Knowledge check with "it's a history of X deity," they ask the player "it refers to X deity, what interesting fact or legend have you heard regarding them?"  If the fact is relevant to the current adventure in some way, all the better!
• When encountering a new type of creature a PC rolls a knowledge check to learn about any possible weaknesses.  With a success, the GM says "ok, you can tell me a little-known weakness of this creature."  This should be kept narratively interesting; answers like "uhhhh, it's vulnerable to swords because I'm carrying a sword" are pretty lame.  As a GM, you can build on that by saying "oh yes, there are tales from ancient Akaras that say the beast is vulnerable to swords.  Of course, all swords from that time were made from Akaran steel, so they felt no need to specify that an 'Akaran blade' was the beast's true weakness."  Instant story hook, and now when the PCs seek out an Akaran blade they'll have a tangible mechanical advantage against this creature.

You can take this idea even further by employing a variant of the "fail forward" philosophy.  That is to say, failure is not simply a dead end, but leads to a different approach that needs to be taken or a pseudo-success but with complications.  Say a PC fails their Knowledge check (or in a system like Edge of the Empire, perhaps they even succeeded with Threat or Despair).  You can provide one fact, and then ask the player to provide an additional fact.  Alternatively, you can have another player at the table provide one of the facts.  Then you roll randomly to determine which of those facts is true, and which is false.  The player will know that one of the facts is false (just not which one), but the character will probably think that both are true.  Acting on misinformation can provide interesting (and sometimes hilarious) results, but the player can't complain too much since they got something true out of the deal, too.  

Alternatively, the complication might be that the player provides just one fact and the GM rolls randomly to determine whether it's true or false.  This works especially well if nobody at the table can think of a second fact right away, and you want to keep the game moving at a fast pace.  It's worth noting that the "is it true?" technique shouldn't be used for all failed Knowledge checks, because it has the potential to become frustrating.  You definitely don't want PCs to be afraid to attempt Knowledge checks!  What's "too much" will vary group to group, but once every few sessions might be a good baseline to start at.

When the GM rolls randomly any die roll that offers a 50/50 result should do just fine, but in some games it might be interesting to make a special type of roll.  The Force Die in Edge of the Empire springs to mind (the GM notes one of the facts, and if a dark side result is rolled it's false, with perhaps more severe consequences if it's a double dark side pip).  The "degrees of truth" idea can also be used with the feat die in The One Ring, making the d12 roll potentially more interesting than a 50/50 roll using a d6 (if the Eye of Sauron or Gandalf rune are rolled, up the stakes).  

Adapting Ally Rolls to Other Systems

I recently posted an article on the Ally Roll table in The One Ring.  Interestingly, it was pretty similar to an improvised mass combat system I'd come up with for 13th Age, with inspiration from Dungeon World.  The concept itself has a lot of potential for general applicability, with the gist being that a single die roll is used to represent a group of allies fighting a group of enemies, with a scale of outcomes tied to the results.  These outcomes need not be written out as a table ahead of time, but they certainly can be.  At minimum your spectrum of outcomes should include bad stuff (allies losing ground) on low rolls, neutral results (or success with complications) on middle rolls, and good stuff (allies gain ground) on high rolls.  The One Ring makes it easy to include really bad stuff and really good stuff at the far ends of the spectrum due to the Eye of Sauron or Gandalf Rune being rolled, respectively, but this could easily be represented by lowest and highest numerical results as well (fumbles and crits, in d20 terminology).

What Die Type Should Be Used?

This question is, of course, system-dependent.  For The One Ring (TOR) the Feat Die (the special d12) was the obvious choice, and the precedent for the mechanic already exists in a published adventure.  A d20 might be appropriate in d20 systems, though I chose to instead opt for 2d6 with 13th Age (13A).  As it turns out, I have some further ideas for modifying the ally check which become more interesting with 2d6 compared with a d20, which I'll discuss later.  But what about a system with non-standard dice, like Edge of the Empire (EotE)?

The similarities between TOR's Feat Die and the Force, Challenge and Proficiency dice of EotE made using the Force Die or the red/yellow d12s pretty tempting.  Theoretically the blank face and the Triumph/Despair could stand in for the Eye of Sauron/Gandalf Rune, with Success/Failure and Advantage/Threat standing in for good or bad results (faces with both being neutral).  On the Force Die the applications of light/dark side pips should be pretty easy to guess.  The ultimate problem with such a system is that the results of the roll aren't easily or intuitively as modifiable as a numerical system.  This presents a couple of big problems, the first being that you can't "custom fit" the probabilities to account for the difficulty of the odds your allies are facing, and second being that bonuses or penalties (due to PC intervention, terrain, narrative changes, etc.) are tough to apply.  It's easy to just say "use a regular d12, or 2d6 just like the other examples!" but ideally you'd use a die or dice that are already used in the game, since not all players can be expected to have a set of standard RPG dice (ok, ok, so most probably have a couple of d6s from board games or whatever).  Thus the obvious choice becomes the d% dice.

You'd basically treat the Ally Roll like you would a roll on the critical injury table (again, you can pre-make a custom table or just wing it).  Off the top of my head, I'd probably break the results down into 1-5 very bad (Eye of Sauron), 6-40 bad, 41-70 neutral, 71-95 good, and 96-100 very good (Gandalf Rune).  The odds are stacked against the allies with the bad range having a 35% chance of being rolled, neutral a 30% chance, and good 25%.  The percentile roll provides a lot of granularity for adjusting based on the difficulty/conditions of the battle, and of course you need to leave PCs the opportunity to be the real heroes by making it an uphill fight.

Oh, and while we're at it I'll note that in the 2d6 system I employed for 13th Age the equivalents to an Eye or Gandalf would be double 1's or double 6's, respectively.  While this makes these results less likely to trigger than in the other examples, it also has the advantage of simplicity.  GMs can get around the reduced probabilities by interpreting those results with a heavier hand, but the probabilities are also a little more malleable when the roll is modified (see the "Game Specifics" section).

Allowing for Player Interaction

There can potentially be problems associated with running different sections of the battlefield with differing degrees of abstraction.  On the one hand, the PCs and their immediate foes will be operating on the scale of individual actions, individual Hit Points/Endurance/Wounds/etc., and individual initiative slots.  The allies all get lumped into a single roll which represents how both sides are faring in relation to each other, and the results are more often than not going to be much more narrative with much less bookkeeping.  While you can add some bookkeeping (see the unit strength idea that I presented in the original 13th Age post, which was the second link at the top of this article), my personal preference is to reduce that level of tracking and instead focus on the broad needs of the plot.  The PCs shouldn't care about too much detail, because in-game they have their own problems, and so they'll be perceiving their allies in broad strokes (besides, this keeps the game moving more quickly, with less time spent on the GM "fighting themselves").

But what happens when a PC wants to interfere?  This is best handled by a modification of the Ally Roll.  Here are 4 distinct examples.

1. A PC kills the foe he was fighting, and wants to effectively "join" the ally group.  Simple enough, just pick out a single opponent or two (or a mook/minion group, if the game supports that), pull them out of the ally roll and into a new personal combat with the PC, using PC scale actions, HP, etc.  If it makes sense that the enemy would already be a little wounded, go with whatever feels right.  To represent the loss of some enemy forces, you could grant a bonus to the Ally Roll (magnitude dependent on the strength of the foes that the PC "drew out").
2. A PC blankets the enemy forces with an area effect (grenade, fireball spell, etc.).  Depending on the size of the enemy group and their durability, this might result in bonuses to the Ally Roll, or perhaps even an automatic positive result.  This is most likely the case if your positive result reads that an enemy/enemies are wounded or slain, and it makes sense that the area attack would have wounded/killed some enemies.  If the PC spends his entire turn and what is probably a limited resource (grenade or daily-use spell), yeah the effect on the Ally Roll should probably be pretty huge.
3. A PC wants to use a skill to bolster the allied forces.  An obvious choice would be Leadership (EotE), Inspire (TOR), or a Cha check with applicable background (13A).  Again, if the PC is using their action to do this then the results should be pretty big.  For some systems that call is automatic (for example, in EotE using a skill is almost always an action), but for others it'll be up to GM discretion (13A and TOR).  GMs might even want to give players a choice of doing things quickly and getting a simple bonus, or spending their action/turn and getting a more significant bonus (a bigger numberical bonus, or perhaps even an automatic "good stuff" result depending on the nature of the action).  
4. A PC wants to command a specific ally to act upon something outside of their own conflict.  For example, commanding an allied archer to shoot the enemy Wizard, or ordering a rebel soldier to fire at the Moff at the computer terminal.  A successful check should allow that ally to be "pulled out" of the ally group for a turn or more, letting them act as an individual at the same scale as the PCs (this is basically example 1 in reverse).  The price you'll pay for this is that you'll probably add a penalty to the Ally Roll, since without that individual's aid the other allies will have a tougher time of it.  Perhaps with a really good roll (Great/Extraordinary success in TOR, Advantage/Triumph in EotE, or a Natural 16+ in 13A) this penalty can be reduced or eliminated.

Game Specifics

Ok, so with the general principle and some examples laid out, let's provide a summary of some baseline mechanics that a GM can draw upon.  Keep in mind that this stuff is still mostly theoretical, as I've minimally playtested it with 13th Age and The One Ring.  Not only that, but because there is so much variance in specific conditions this is designed to be modifiable and somewhat improvisational by the GM.

The One Ring - You'll be using the Feat Die for the Ally Roll, usually with a spread of Eye (really bad), 1-4 (bad), 5-7 (neutral), 8-10 (good), and Gandalf (really good).  Bonuses/Penalties to the Ally Roll should generally be between 1 and 4, with +/-2 and +/-4 being good starting points thanks to the Complications Table (pg. 48 LMB, GM Screen).  Keep in mind degrees of success, with a simple success on any PC's skill check to interfere providing a modest bonus, and Great or Extraordinary successes have better results.

13th Age - Use 2d6 for the Ally roll, with 6 or less being a bad roll, 7-9 as neutral, and 10 or more being a good result.  Optionally, double 1's can be very bad, and double 6's very good.  While simple numerical modifiers certainly work for bonuses or penalties (I'd use the range allowable by Backgrounds: 1-5), I really like the idea of successful skill checks adding a die to the pool to provide a functional "re-roll."  In other words, roll 3d6 and keep the highest 2 values.  Severe penalties could go the opposite way (roll 3d6 and keep the lowest 2 values).  This boosts the low probabilities of the double 1's/6's for very bad/good results, and in my opinion is a more satisfying impact for players than a straight modifier (a modifier can't save a horrific roll, but a re-roll very well could).  Optionally, a 16+ on the PC's roll can add the extra d6 in addition to a numerical modifier.  The base dice pool of 2d6 works really well here because re-rolling the entire Ally Roll comes across as a bit too powerful to me.

Edge of the Empire - Using a d% for the Ally Roll this system potentially offers the most granularity, but realistically things should probably be kept to intervals of 5%.  As I stated before, the baseline breakdown might be as follows: 1-5 (very bad), 6-40 (bad), 41-70 (neutral), 71-95 (good), and 96-100 (very good).  A bonus of 10% per success on a PC's skill roll seems about right, though with checks that have a goal other than simply boosting the Ally Roll, allowing Advantage to be spent to also boost the Ally Roll by 5% per Advantage seems reasonable.  Additionally, keep in mind that with EotE the minion rules already provide an easy way to adjudicate battles between small groups of allies and enemies, and so GMs should consider carefully when using these Ally Rolls is really appropriate.  Probably only with large squads that would result in unwieldy dice pools if treated as minions, or if the GM wants the combat to run especially quickly and doesn't want to deal with actual dice pools and minion tracking.

Miscellaneous Note on Cumulative Bonuses

Sometimes it makes sense for a bonus to an Ally Roll to last more than a single round.  For example, if you give the roll a penalty for one of the ally combatant being wounded or killed, then that penalty should probably stick around until the playing field is even with an enemy being wounded or killed.  If the Ally Roll gets a bonus because the enemy leader was taken down, that drop in enemy morale should probably last for the entire battle.  

Some player actions will result in advantages of variable duration.  If a PC rolled to inspire his allies, how long does that bonus to the Ally Roll last?  It could be just 1 round, it could be longer for a higher degree of success.  Maybe it simply lasts until a low roll comes up (bad or very bad) and the allies are demoralized again.  Go with what makes sense.  Some "tactical" rolls where a PC tries to direct allies to a better fighting position should obviously last as long as the allies hold that position.  You might even alter the outcome of a roll (on the fly, even if you're using a pre-made table) so that a bad result, which would normally wound or kill an ally, instead drives the group off of this position, nullifying the bonus.  

Ultimately, one last thing to keep in mind is to go with what makes sense in the moment.  This house rule isn't designed to be an in-depth new mechanic tacked onto the game, and doesn't need to strike a perfect balance.  Rather, it's designed to provide some structure for handling groups of allied combatants narratively.  It's for when "making it up as you go along" feels too arbitrary.  It's there as a baseline, to get your creative juices flowing, and to basically provide a status update on how those other guys are doing, especially during rounds where the PCs aren't direction involved with that side of the battle.  If you use it in a game, let me know how it goes.

On Repeated Skill Use: An Addendum

Several weeks ago I posted an article on why I dislike repeated skill use in RPGs.  Last night's game of Edge of the Empire caused me to re-examine the issue.  I still think the general argument stands, but it bears clarifying that it's exactly that - a generalization.

Early on in the campaign my character stole a swoop bike.  A really nice swoop bike (the Obligation was totally worth it).  So naturally, when the planet we land on is hosting a big swoop race I'm going to enter it.  Unfortunately, my character is the only PC that actually owns a swoop bike, and the only one who is a decently focused pilot, so this was my time to shine with a minimal amount for everyone else at the table to do.

The GM set it up by sketching out the track, and numbering 4 different points where Piloting checks would be called for.  The race was 2 laps, so that's 8 Piloting checks in a row, which could potentially get tedious.  I was certainly wary going in, when he was describing the set-up.  But it actually ended up working really well, for a few different reasons.  Most importantly, the narrative was at the forefront.  Each number on the track was a distinct obstacle (a slalom, a canyon jump, a corkscrew down-ramp into the canyon, and a narrow, one-lane choke point), and so the results were going to be interpreted differently based on which obstacle was being navigated.  Obviously there was also the jockeying for position by the other racers.  And I must admit that I couldn't have done it if our assassin droid hadn't been running interference on the leaders from a covert sniping position just off the track.  Mechanical reasons why the excitement kept flowing included a torrent of Destiny Point use, and the constant fear of what a Despair, or even a large number of Threat, might mean.  This was a tricky run at high speeds with a lot of competition, so there was a lot that could go wrong!  Fortunately, thanks to the Droid's help and luckier rolls than I'm used to getting, I actually placed 1st (I expected 4th or 5th).

Aside from the details of the task itself, there was also a lot riding on this race.  My sponsor (I certainly couldn't foot the bill for that entry fee!) works directly under the Hutt that we're trying to make nice with.  He's also the same guy that just entrusted us with a smuggling test-run (a few "freebie" crates of Booster Blue, on loan, to make sure we were reliable).  Bungling the race could negatively affect the smuggling job, and there is potentially a LOT of Obligation riding on both tasks.  Oh, and the only reason we're even trying to get into this Hutt's inner circle is because the corrupt sector ranger responsible for my Blackmail Obligation from char-gen smuggles for him, and I'm looking for a way to expose the dirt-bag (or more likely to turn the tables and blackmail HIM) to reduce my Obligation.  To make matters worse, our group was teetering dangerously close to 100 Obligation total.

So, yeah.  Aside from making the descriptions of the task itself creative and interesting, with a lot of variation between the different rolls, it helps when the scene is high stakes from a big-picture point of view.

Ultimately, the big difference I see in the above example compared with the examples from my earlier post is that despite the fact that the same skill was rolled multiple times in a row, each distinct roll represented its own mini-challenge.  The scene was the swoop race, whereas the task was a canyon jump, or a choke point, etc.  I'm glad my GM ran it this way.  When he was setting the stage for this, I was thinking "I wonder if it'd be better to just roll a single Pilot check for the race, or for a lap?" but in hindsight that wouldn't have been NEARLY as exciting.  A scene like this needs the constant jockeying for position, the tension of knowing that the GM still has X Destiny points, which makes a Despair that much more likely, ample opportunities for Advantage and Threat to be interpreted, and enough screen time to do it justice.

So I guess the point I'm driving at is that it's important to know when to "zoom in," and by how much.  Definitely do so if there's a lot riding on the scene, or if you're prepared to offer up a lot of juicy description and meaningful consequences.  The point of the game isn't the rolls you make, but the fictional details that are sometimes adjudicated with rolls.  Don't let rolling dice get in the way of the story, and if rolling the same skill multiple times enhances the story feel free to do it, keeping in mind the potential pitfalls (as outline in the previous article).

On Prolonged Actions (Or Repeated Skill Checks)

I was playing Edge of the Empire with my group yesterday, and after several sessions of being unable to catch a breather and repair our ship's Hull Trauma, the party finally scrounged together some funds and some downtime.  Naturally, our Wookiee Mechanic wanted to assist the repair crew that we hired since his Solid Repairs talent would essentially let us repair a "free" point of HT, which is crucial given that we're strapped for credits.

One of the other players asked "is that +1 per day of repairing the ship, or just +1 to the total?"  This player's system-of-choice is Pathfinder so he tends to lean toward system mastery (gaming the system), and I immediately replied that while it's not spelled out exactly in the rules and thus is open to GM interpretation, repairing the ship should be a single "action" regardless of how many days it took (which the GM agreed with).  The answer was pretty reflexive to me, but it got me thinking about the deeper issue at hand here: I really dislike the concept of repeated skill use in an RPG.

This includes things like making a skill check for each hour of work on a multi-day repair job.  Failing a Lockpicking check (in D&D, usually) and immediately saying "can I try again?"  Encountering a room full of half a dozen traps and being tasked with rolling to disarm Each.  One.  Individually.

The One Ring actually has a rule for this, called Prolonged Actions.  It's always been one of my least favorite rules in the game, to the point where I've never even considered bringing it up.  Here's the justification in the rules (pg. 22 of the LMB, emphasis mine) - "Prolonged actions are particularly suited to evoke an atmosphere of tension, but may also be employed when the acting characters want to tackle a difficult task with caution, and have the time to do it."  Basically, they're rules on how to take a single skill check and break it into multiple skill checks.

I would argue that such a game mechanic is completely and utterly pointless.  Why would it benefit cautious players to attempt Prolonged Actions?  Because the result is not at the mercy of a single die roll, but rather the more rolls you make, the closer your end result is likely to be to the average.  At that point, why not just "take 10" (to use a D&D term) and dispense with the skill check altogether?  After all, by allowing multiple rolls you're already establishing that the situation is one in which there is plenty of time for "repeated attempts," so you're going to make it anyways.  Why not just cut to the chase?

There's a fundamental rule that's usually called out in most RPG books but is easily forgotten by some players, and that is that a skill check should only be rolled when there is a risk for failure or when there would be some otherwise dramatic consequences.  If you can try something as many times as you want, there is implicitly no risk for failure.  Let's go back to the examples above.

1. So the Wookiee helps repair the ship, along with a retinue of professional mechanics in a proper facilities.  Is there any question that the ship will get repaired?  No?  Well, there's not even a roll required (in our game, the GM wisely did not ask for a Mechanics check for that very reason).  It's worth keeping in mind that the talent doesn't give you +1 HT for each Mechanics check made, but rather "whenever he repairs a vehicle or starship."  That's whether or not a roll is required.
2. If the Rogue (or insert similar archetype based on the game in question) goes up to a lock to pick it, just let him do it if there's a reasonable chance of success.  Because he'll just try again anyways.  Now, it's another story if there are alert guards standing just on the other side of the door (for example), in which case failure on the first attempt probably means that too much noise was made in the attempt.  That's FAILURE, as opposed to "I didn't quite get it...this time."
3. There's nothing that annoys me more than a dungeon crawl where the Rogue scouts ahead and there's 20 minutes of the GM saying "make a Perception check.  Ok, you see a trap there, roll to Disable it."  And the room is full of traps.  It's boring, even if it means the Rogue is filling his niche.  I'd rather a single Perception check notice all of the traps, with a single roll to disable ALL of them (unless there are different types of traps of varying difficulties, that are described narratively to keep things interesting).  Honestly I'd rather go the old school route of describing all of your actions in detail (because skill checks didn't exist yet) and succeeding when your idea made sense.  Potentially tedius in a different sort of way (stopping every 10 ft to probe with your wooden pole, anyone?), but at least the game tends toward more immersive detail.

I would be remiss if I didn't make note of a possible exception to my aversion to Prolonged Actions (in whatever form they take depending on the game), and that is the classic Time Limit (though there may be other situational exceptions).  For example, you've got 4 rounds to disable this trap and then open that lock and get through the door, while being attacked by zombies, GO!  Stressful situation + time limit means that every roll has an implicit drama attached to it.  You fail a check, that's another round that you have to deal with complications.  Or someone less skilled has to drop what they're doing to make an attempt.  The results are interesting.  Ultimately, go with the Rule of Cool whenever possible.  If something is so routine that the results aren't all that interesting one way or the other, let it happen.

Galactic Coordinates Reference

Time really does fly, doesn't it?  Hard to believe I haven't posted anything in a month.  Been busy with non-gaming stuff, but I've also been pecking away at a little side project that I finally finished.  It's an Excel spreadsheet that lists every system, their coordinates, and any major hyperlanes that pass through them from the galactic map on pages 328-9 of the Edge of the Empire core rulebook.  By default it's sorted alphabetically by system so that you can locate any system easily on the map.  While you can sort by hyperlane as well, it's probably easier to just look at the map to see what systems are along the route.

GMs and players alike might find it useful.  Enjoy!

The End of the Axtalrath Campaign

I started my 13th Age campaign back in January, as a way to introduce the group to the game.  Eight months later, I found myself surprised how long it actually lasted.  I had intended to run a shorter campaign just to get people used to the system, but the ideas just kept flowing and it took on a life of its own.  With everyone wanting to actually play Edge of the Empire, it seemed like a good time to draw 13th Age to a close, despite the fact that I still had plenty of material floating around in my head.

Finale Summary

We covered a lot of ground throughout this campaign, but the quick and dirty backstory is that there was a recently colonized island in the Midland Sea, where the PCs were residing at the start of the campaign, and about a week (game time) earlier a great red dragon named Axtalrath had taken up residence there.  Somewhere in the middle of the campaign the wood elf Cleric had also freed an imprisoned Dracolich, meaning that there were TWO dragons loose now.  After escaping the island via a portal at the end of a living dungeon, hanging around in Drakkenhall, and getting some magical aid from Arden, the Great Gold Wyrm's silver dragon counterpart (known as the Sea Dragon, she left the empire when the Midland Sea was tamed, and now guards the Sea Wall from the creatures of the Iron Sea), it was time to return to the island and put a stop to Axtalrath.

Now, Axtalrath was a Huge Red Dragon (the level 13 one from the core book), and the party had just hit level 5.  The Dracolich was a Huge 8th level custom creation based on the dragons from the book.  Clearly a face-to-face fight was out of the question.  Fortunately, the magic that Arden gifted the PCs with would allow them to reverse the polarity of the island's sky-metal monolith (which has been drawing magical energy from the ley lines underneath), forcing it to siphon nearby elemental fire instead.  If Axtalrath were nearby, it would destroy her.

With that plan in mind, the PCs began the session in an old cave system where the Dracolich's phylactery was hidden.  The kobold guards were toast (all 30+ of them) after the last battle of the previous session, so after recovering the phylactery the party sought out the Dracolich and threatened to destroy it unless he challenged Axtalrath in single combat, drawing her to the monolith.  After some negotiation which left the Cleric with cursed hands (think Dumbledore's) and cursed eyes (a self-inflicted complication from an Icon roll), the Dracolich grudgingly agreed.

Cue the big epic battle.  The Monk's OUT was that he can climb impossible surfaces, so once Axtalrath was in sight he activated Arden's magic at the top of the monolith while the Fighter did the same at the base.  It took a few rounds to charge up, during which the Dracolich occupied most of Axtalrath's attention, while Axtalrath sent some allies (courtesy of The Blue) after the PCs (a hill giant and several Hobgoblin warcasters).  Just when things were looking dire for the Dracolich, the energy began arcing from the monolith to Axtalrath.  It was then that she knew what was going on, so for 2 rounds before her death she focused her attention on the PCs.  One breath weapon killed the Cleric outright in a single shot, and grievously wounded the others.  The Fighter was unconscious, so I randomly rolled to see whether she would target her death throes on the Paladin or Monk.  Paladin got the unlucky roll, and in a surprising bout of heroism the Monk intercepted, and I let him use Improbably Stunt to use a finishing move as part of the intercept.  After 3 attacks from the dragon (2 of which hit; I think I fumbled the other one) the Monk was outright killed, too.  Axtalrath swallowed him whole, and as the player noted that he'd had 2 vials of poison on his person, the dragon experienced some mild gastric distress before being immolated and siphoned into the monolith.

The Paladin used a magic axe with item-destroying powers to betray the Dracolich by destroying the phylactery anyways.  This axe caused images from the destroyed item's past to be reflected in its blade, and destroying the phylactery therefore replaced the images from the last item the axe destroyed - images that would have implicated the Paladin's political rival and ended his exile, restoring his status in Dwarven society.  A noble sacrifice, to be sure, but not so final as the one that the Cleric and Monk made.  Of course, being inside of Axtalrath when she was consumed allowed the Monk's essence to be sucked into the island's ley lines through the monolith, so he IS the island now.  And the Cleric got to meet the voice behind a mysterious amulet that talked to him - the voice of God.  And the Fighter, well, he made the Great Gold Wyrm proud by defeated two rivals.

Icons

This session was interesting because I hadn't planned on having the PCs roll their Relationship Dice until the last minute.  The final confrontation was pretty much set without much wiggle room if we were to finish in one session, and I'd had a 6 with the Emperor and a 5 and 6 with the Orc Lord banked from last session.  But I figured I'd let them roll one last time, and got more results than usual.  Three more 6's and three more 5's, to be precise.  Even more surprising was that all of them got used except one of the 5's (for the Emperor).

So how'd I pull it off?  Well, I decided to burn the Orc Lord relationship by making the Dracolich's phylactery a shrunken head - that happened to be an orc.  No shame in having an Icon roll result in some interesting aesthetic detail.  Were it not the last session, something like that could have taken on greater significance later.  A 5 with The Three meant that a pair of kobold scouts happened to be discovering the massacre of their fellow guards just as the PCs exited the cave, and they were able to capture one of them and force him to take them to the Dracolich's camp.  A 5 for the Priestess let the Cleric (by his suggestion) discover the ritual to destroy the phylactery by studying the various runes carved into the scarified face, but at the expense of getting cursed eyes (a negative background; too bad he didn't live long enough for it to come into play).  The Fighter used a 6 with the Great Gold Wyrm (by his suggestion) to convince the Dracolich during negotiations that Arden had provided them with the means to destroy his phylactery (this was before the Cleric discovered its secrets), and the name-dropping also leant much weight to the plan to destroy Axtalrath.  The Dracolich was, after all, very much outmatched in that fight.  A 6 for the Emperor revealed that an old ally (Lord Taramos) was in residence at the Wizard tower beside the monolith, and being the most powerful wizard on the island he was able to aid them by animating the crystalline walls surrounding the compound during the fight.  Rolls for the Dwarf King and Orc Lord determined the allies sent by The Blue through the portal (this is one that I'd actually planned on using BEFORE the session, even jotting down a list of possible allies associated with each Icon in the party).

And that about covered it.  It turned out to be perhaps the most Icon-heavy session in the campaign, despite the fact that the plot was pretty much "set."  I guess the moral of the story here is GMs shouldn't be afraid to stack the odds against the PCs, and let Icon rolls determine whatever little advantages they can eke out to level the playing field a little bit.  It's usually pretty easy to come up with story-guidance results as a GM, but until that sub-plot resolves itself sometimes it's tough to interpret Icon rolls.  But that's cool, because if you just increase the pressure on the PCs they might just come up with clever ways to leverage their connections with the Icons.  In some ways I don't think that the player-input facet of the Icons hit its stride until later in the campaign, which makes me really excited for the next campaign now that the players know the ropes!

13th Age Mechanics in Pathfinder

Well, I did something I never thought I would do again - I started playing in a Pathfinder game.  Largely because one of the players from my 13th Age campaign is GMing it, and he's incorporating some 13th Age mechanics into the game, outlined below.

• Icons.  The published list is used as a base, though several of them have been changed to some degree or another.  Also, there's only 10 or 11 of them.  Icon relationships in the party include the High Druid, the General (sort of a combination of the Emperor and the Crusader, but not evil), the Prince of Shadows, the Archmage, the Great Gold Wyrm, and The Holy Mother (a slightly modified Priestess).  
• One Unique Thing.  This is used as-is, though some of the players have elected to keep theirs a secret.  My character's OUT is "stolen" from Angel (The Buffy spinoff), as he can read someone's destiny when they sing (like Lorne, though the character is human, and even though he's a Bard he doesn't sing himself).  Interesting, one of the other players completely independently said that his character's OUT is that he knows that his fate is death, but doesn't yet know how he'll die.
• The Escalation Die is in, but the GM is capping it at 4 to keep the bonuses from getting out of hand (not sure how long fights will last; many of the PCs are more social/exploration oriented as opposed to strong combatants).  
• Backgrounds, much to my dismay, are NOT in.  Yep, still have to deal with that long, fiddly skill list (one of the things I like least about Pathfinder).  Oh well, I'll live.
• The GM has let me swap out Bardic Performance (like I said, my Bard doesn't sing) for the Storyteller talent from 13th Age.  It's already come into play beautifully.  As we were searching through the house of a murder (and theft, but at that point does it really matter?) victim my Bard mentioned that the Rogue really looked like he knew his stuff when it comes to breaking and entering, and asked if he recognized any patterns or anything about the way the place was searched (only very specific things were stolen).  The Rogue got to re-roll his story-guide relationship with the Prince of Shadows, and got a 6!  So we got some info, confirming the killer as belonging to his old guild.

While the fiddly bits and rules look-ups are still annoying, I've built my character to mostly avoid a lot of that stuff.  Case in point, before I thought of swapping in Storyteller, I'd flat-out stated that I was going to ignore Bardic Performance because it was too much bookkeeping and too convoluted.  The OUTs are already making for an interesting group, and the increased narrative focus is just generally making the system more tolerable.  These 13th Age mechanics mesh well with Pathfinder, despite the two systems sharing COMPLETELY different philosophies.  I'm looking forward to seeing how it all progresses.

On a related note, this week I'm wrapping up my current 13th Age campaign.  I've been driving the plot to its conclusion for the last few sessions more quickly than I'd initially intended, with a ton of cool ideas still floating around in my head.  But I'm itching to try Edge of the Empire, and so is the rest of the group, and I'm also a bit burnt out on GMing (this Pathfinder campaign aside, I haven't played a PC for about a year and a half).  It's been going 8 months strong, but I look forward to the next game when everyone has a better idea of what to expect from the character classes (for example, my Paladin player hates his class).

Expect me to focus a bit more on Star Wars and a bit less on 13th Age coming up soon, but I'm sure I'll get another 13th Age game up and running after 13 True Ways is released.

Laptops at the Gaming Table

I've gone back and forth with using a laptop for GMing during play.  Ultimately, while I've always found word processors useful for planning sessions because you can add onto individual notes without having everything scribbled everywhere in a haphazard fashion, connected with a complex system of arrows, etc. (as inevitably happens when making paper notes), I generally prefer keeping notes in a notebook.  Or used to, anyways.  Mostly because a large volume of notes (for a campaign, for example) is more easily searchable in a well-organized binder.  You can take multiple pages out and view them side-by-side even if they were written at different times, and are thus separated by a lot of other notes.  And so I've kept a very well-organized campaign binder, leaving the laptop at home.

Until I discovered Evernote.

Evernote is an organizational tool that isn't designed specifically for tabletop RPGs, but it works nearly perfectly for it.  You create folders, which you can organize into stacks and/or pin to a shortcuts sidebar, and in the folders you keep "notes."  A second sidebar lists all of the notes in a folder.  Each note can be given multiple tags, but a search bar can make it even easier to find specific things as it searches the body of the notes.  You can attach pretty much anything to a note (a spreadsheet, a pdf, a web page), keeping everything at your fingertips.  Because that's the real beauty of Evernote.  Everything is so accessible with a single click.

As an example, I have a stack for 13th Age.  The stack contains 3 folders - a general folder (for big-picture brainstorming that I won't need to reference at the table, and probably isn't related to the current campaign), a folder for my current campaign, and a folder for "set pieces" (generic cinematic scenes that I can adapt to many situations, which is great for on-the-fly encounters).  My campaign folder and the set pieces folder are both in the shortcuts bar, so I can switch between them with a click.  The campaign folder has a bunch of notes, each with a very specific topic, and all are listed along the side for ease of switching between them.  I've got a note with all of the PC information (icons, backgrounds, OUTs, etc.), an NPC list, a list of random names that don't have NPCs attached to them yet, the monster builder reference sheet, a player reference sheet, a GM reference sheet, a list of homebrewed potions, a damage tracker, specific notes on using the icons of my PCs, and of course an individual note for each week's session.

Everything is organized into its own category, and each note is relatively short so you're immediately looking at the exact information you need.  Try it.  It'll make your GMing life much easier.

On a related note, I decided that since I'll be using the laptop for Evernote, I might as well make a damage-tracker spreadsheet for combat.  This is great, because when I'm tracking damage on paper and I have 8 monsters to pay attention to, and multiple players shouting things at me (they're great, really), it sometimes takes me a second to mentally do the math.  More importantly, I have to devote my mental energy to doing math as opposed to coming up with cool things for the NPCs to do, or good ways to describe the action.  The spreadsheet's great because I just have a column for each monster, and I list its initiative, any conditions, and its total HP.  Under that I have a SUM cell, so when a player calls out the damage they did I just type it into the next cell down and the SUM cell spits out the total.  It's made things noticeably easier on my end.

13 Tips for GMing 13th Age

13th Age is a different beast than other d20 games, and GMing it effectively can take some getting used to.  What follows is a list of tips to help ease the transition.  I don't claim to be a spectacular 13th Age GM by any stretch; indeed, a lot of the items on this list are things that I'd like to strive for myself.


Tip 1:  Get comfortable with improvisation.  But first thing's first - accept the fact that you'll have to improvise if you take advantage of the system's strengths.

Tip 2:  Don't be afraid to lean on your players.  13th Age gives players a lot of narrative power, allowing them to shape the campaign into their own ideal playground.  You're still in charge of the details, but if you're drawing a blank your players will probably have some suggestions.

Tip 3:  Fail forward.  Sure, a lot of games embrace this philosophy, but it just so happens that it's important to 13th Age as well.  As an example from the last session I ran:  the Cleric wanted to identify these glowing lichens and glowing mushrooms in a dungeon passage.  After failing the Intelligence check, the player said "well, I guess I have no clue what they are."  To which I responded "You don't know their specific properties, but they look a lot like something you've heard in the stories of drow.  Drow avoid them."  Failure, and my on-the-spot thinking, actually generated a more interesting answer than if he'd succeeded and I simply told him what the fungi were.

Tip 4:  The Mephistophelean Bargain.  This is one of Rob Heinsoo's trademarks.  It's a variant of the "yes, and..." school of thought.  When a player suggests something, you shouldn't just say "no" because that's not very interesting.  Even if it's something outrageous, you should give them an option to go with that - but with a commensurate price!  This can either be a gambler's bargain, where the rewards for success are great, but failure offers a very severe risk, or it can simply mean accepting consequences along with what is asked for.

Tip 5:  Minis are very helpful.  Yeah, this is a gridless game and you can easily play it theater of the mind style, but minis make it extremely easily to quickly resolve any logistical questions the players might have, and everyone's on the same page in terms of where everyone is.

Tip 6:  Ask leading questions, particularly during character creation.  My players have a tendency to start out with pretty generic backgrounds.  I wish I'd pushed them more to be a bit more creative, but it's starting to get refined out in-play all the same.  The more specific your players get with their narrative mechanics (Backgrounds, One Unique Thing, Icon Relationships), the richer the game experience will be.

Tip 7:  Now that you've encouraged the players to give you a bunch of built-in hooks, use them!  The simplest and most overt example of this is using Icon rolls, but make sure you're weaving in elements from the character's backgrounds and OUTs as well.  If you're ever stuck for ideas, turn to the character details.  Players like when the plot becomes personal, so you can turn a dead end into something interesting.

Tip 8:  Be prepared to house rule.  The game's math is extremely transparent, so take advantage of that fact!  I've had players complain about their classes, and since this is a story-focused game the players need to be invested in their characters.  If there's a change that can be made to improve the experience for them, try it out!  For example, my group found the Barbarian to be too weak so I'm more than happy houseruling it.  Likewise my Cleric is getting bored with having only 1 ranged at-will spell, so I've set him to work homebrewing a new one (pending my approval, of course).  You can directly modify the class mechanics, adjust the experience with significant magic items, or even use story rewards (like 4E's grandmaster training or divine boons).

Tip 9:  Keep monsters interesting by sending them in in waves, having them play differently when staggered, or giving them abilities tied to the Escalation Die.

Tip 10:  Create interesting items for players to spend their gold on.  Ok, so not all campaigns have a big gear focus, but even though I'm one who likes to gloss over gear I still find the consumables list lacking.  Potions (2 kinds), oils, and runes will get old fast.  I've made a larger list of potions, and I'm also going to start keeping my eye open for story-based ways to make the PCs' lives easier if they're willing to shell out some cash.

Tip 11:  Keep the terrain fresh, and give players a lot of non-standard options during combat.  13th Age doesn't have a robust tactical engine in the sense that, say, D&D 4e did.  The advantages of this is that it's faster, and more flexible.  Use Talents like Swashbuckle, Terrain Stunt, and Vance's Polysyllabic Verbalizations for inspiration (but make sure these options come with a cost, so as not to make those talents obsolete!).  Players won't take the bait despite your hints?  Have the monsters pull some crazy stunts for a less subtle approach.

Tip 12:  Steal!  Steal ideas from books, movies, tv, whatever.  This is something that Chris Perkins emphasizes all the time, and it's all the more appropriate in a more narrative-centric game like 13th Age (compared with D&D).  The more engaging and rich your story is, the more satisfying all of those story-based player resources will be.  Of course disguise anything your players might be familiar with in a fresh set of clothes.  In other words, don't copy+paste, but use familiar media as a starting point that you can add to.  It can add a lot to the experience if you have a character in mind whenever you're playing an NPC (or an Icon), if nothing else than for consistency in how you portray them.

Tip 13:  Have fun!  Ok, so I started running out of worthwhile ideas, but this list just BEGS to have 13 tips, and having fun is really important (albeit obvious).

Improvised Mass Combat in 13th Age

My 13th Age Campaign based on the Dungeon World Front "The Great Wyrm Axtalrath" has taken on a life of its own.  Which is perhaps to be expected, given the GMing philosophies and story game slant of the two systems.  A few sessions ago the PCs traveled back in time to the 8th Age, encountering a very different Crescent Isle (and a very different Midland Sea, pre Archmage enchantment; wild and untamed).  Their experience in the 8th Age planted seeds for overcoming the problems they've been facing in the 13th Age, the importance of some of which haven't been revealed yet.

Given the differences between the two ages, there's a lot of unexplained history and perhaps some avenues of interest that would inevitably lead to dead ends if pursued.  So how did I address this potential issue?  The almighty flashback.  This past session the players took control of new PCs from the 8th Age (80 years after when the main PCs time-traveled to), all part of a crew tasked by the then-Emperor to take control of Crescent Isle by force (the native sea and wood elves took issue with the Empire essentially using their island as a prison colony, so they began sinking Imperial ships).  The big upside to this flashback was also that the players got to experiment with other classes.

Fast forward to the final encounter of the evening.  The party, backed by a platoon of imperial soldiers and 3 ballistas, took on the wood elf capital, their victory explaining why there are no wood elves on the island in the 13th Age.  Oddly enough, it wasn't until I was a round or two into this combat that I thought "shit, I didn't even THINK about how the system doesn't have any mass combat rules!"  Here's what I came up with, a few rounds into the combat (before that I described everything narratively).

I kept track of different units or sections of the battlefield.  The Ranger was fighting with the soldiers, but the Wizard and Rogue went off on their own to take out some Druids that were controlling magical blasting stones that were decimating the soldiers and damaging the ballistas.  Archers on top of the city walls were raining death down from above, while Druids wild-shaped into bears and wolves were trying to kill all the soldiers in the vicinity of the ballistas to neutralize them.  Soldiers were escorting companions carrying a battering ram, and later in the fight I had a second unit arrive with reinforcements.

Perhaps appropriately since the idea for the campaign came from Dungeon World, my dirt-simple, on-the-fly mass combat rules were also inspired by Dungeon World.  The core mechanic in Dungeon World is roll 2D6+modifiers, with a 6 or less as a failure, 7-9 as success but..., and 10+ as full success.  Ok, so technically you could argue that the core mechanic of Dungeon World is actually narrative description, but when the dice come out that's how they roll.

Using that as a base, I rolled a d6 for each unit and on a 1-2 bad things happened, on a 3-4 both sides had some success and it mostly evened out, and on a 5-6 good things happened.  It worked well enough to give the impression that I wasn't just making up whatever I felt like, but it was still pretty simplistic and didn't account for relative unit strength.  Clearly there's room for improvement.

Refining the Basic Concept
Still, I like the base of letting large-scale events hinge on the roll of a d6, with results being more than just binary success/failure (namely that those middle values are a partial success).  The question, then, is how to assign value to units in the simplest way possible?

I'm thinking of using the strongest unit present at the outset as a baseline, and giving it a value of 10.  All other units are assigned values as a percentage of the strongest (a unit half as strong would be given a value of 5).  Unit strength is an abstraction, so a unit with fewer raw numbers but in a highly defensible position would be pretty strong.  An eyeballed approximation of advantage.  This is still meant to be quick and dirty, potentially even run on-the-fly.

A unit's value represents its "damage roll."  A multiple of the unit's value (10?) would serve as its "HP."  Rolling for just a single side (the player's side), a 1-2 would deal the enemy unit's damage to the player unit's HP and the player unit would deal half damage to the enemy, 3-4 both would deal their damage to each other, and 5-6 the player unit would deal damage to the enemy while the enemy only deals half damage.  Just like a group of mooks, once a unit takes damage equal to the HP multiplier, its value is reduced by 1.

Once a unit's value is reduced to half of the opposing unit's strength, that unit would start making morale rolls.  I'm thinking a d6 with 1-2 as a failure, with failure increasing by an additional 1 for each additional point below half.  If PCs want to act as "commander" types they could make Cha checks (with any relevant leadership background) to provide a +1 bonus to morale checks.  Or maybe even damage checks.

For the sake of simplicity, unit strength could be tracked using d10s.  If you use a map, the d10 could even represent the center of the unit's position.

Anyways, this hasn't been playtested AT ALL, it's mostly just me throwing out an idea for simplifying mass combat as much as possible.  It's also worth mentioning that the way I envision this, it probably isn't the main focus of the combat.  The PCs are off fighting specific foes at critical locations using the normal combat rules, with the mass combat going on in the background.  So anyways, give it a try, tweak it, and let me know how it goes.