GM Planning: Session 14

Approaching mass combat, and the lay of the land in Gordin's Delve

And we’re back!

Today we return to our long-running campaign of Stonetop, an outstanding hearth fantasy TTRPG which you can pre-order here. If you haven’t already, I strongly encourage you to check out the recap of the story so far — a lot has happened to our heroes over the past few years, and we’re going to jump right back into the action.

The gathering storm

When we last left our heroes, the muster of Gordin’s Delve had been called. The Bosses, united under Jahalim as chieftain, have armed the people of the Delve and now have roughly 100 able-bodied fighters who at least know which way the spear points, plus their own few dozen personal guards to fight against the coming raid.

Arrayed against them is Cirl-of-the-Storms and his warrior band, the Stormcrows. Here’s how Vahid described their foes:

“They are at least three dozen strong, seasoned warriors, all honed by raids and feuds. They are led by a champion of the t’ud who slew his own father to take leadership of his band¹. And that is to say nothing of the magic the sorcerer wields -- if he calls upon the storm, he might split Sorrow’s Gate² in two with its fury.”

In the days of the Makers, Sorrow’s Gate was an impregnable bastion. // Source: Midjourney

In this episode, we’re going to talk about how I like to approach mass combat in PbtA and other narrative games, and then we’ll dive into the nitty-gritty of the PC’s situation here, examining their advantages, the hdour’s strengths, and how the battle might unfold in the coming session.

Mass Combat in TTRPGs

A quick search on Reddit will turn up a huge range of advice on how to run mass combats in TTRPGs — you’ll get tons of system recommendations that let you move armies of thousands around a battlefield, make attack rolls for units, rules for cavalry charges and archer volleys, and all that. Those can be a lot of fun, but I do think that if that’s your itch, Warhammer 40k or an X-COM-like might scratch it better.

This is not the vibe we’re going for.

The approach that the PbtA family supports dispenses with a lot of that. In story games, you generally don’t look at the battlefield from a frythanc’s eye view and move pieces around the field. Instead, you stay zoomed in on the perspective of individual characters, narrowly focused on their role in turning the tide of battle. TTRPG characters generally aren’t armchair generals — their personal presence on the battlefield can have a material impact, so moving units around a map isn’t what they’re experiencing. For gamier, tactical-ier RPGs, zooming out is OK, but for the purposes of PTFO, we’re going to keep our boots on the ground. PbtA games are strong at genre emulation, and a stalwart trope of the fantasy genre is the heroes fighting on the front lines of a grand battle — think the opening battle scene of Gladiator in the woods of Germania, the Battles of Helms Deep and Pelennor Fields in Lord of the Rings, or the Battle of the Blackwater from A Song of Ice and Fire.

This is the vibe.

As in every other session of PTFO, Session 14 is going to be a series of scenes, so we have to put our GM hats on and prepare to set those scenes. What’s our equivalent to the causeway fight in the Two Towers GIF above, or the assault on the Mud Gate during the Battle of Blackwater in A Clash of Kings, or the search for Ravenclaw’s Diadem during the Battle of Hogwarts in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows?

The Order of Battle

To figure that out, we need to identify critical locations where fighting might take place and the people and forces that might try to make a difference in the fight to come. We’ll start with the enemy.

The Foe

The first and foremost threat of the Stormcrows is the hdour himself, Cirl-of-the-Storms. We’ve loosely established that he has command over powerful storm spirits, allowing him to control the weather, call down strikes of lightning (which are capable of significant damage, even against arcane architecture like the Maker Roads), and he can empower his servants with the elemental power of the storm, though the strain of it kills them after a time. We’ve also seen that he has some Arcana, though it hasn’t been revealed to the PCs which ones or what they do. Since this is a GM planning episode, I’ll reveal that one of them, a magical flute, allows him to summon a wind spirit that can bring messages over long distances, and the other, a long strand of prayer beads, allows him to meditate to gain preternatural endurance (which he will certainly do on the eve of battle!)

Second, we have the Stormcrows themselves — a band of veteran fighters, described by Vahid’s quote above. Most of these men and women have fought and killed before, and those few that have not have trained extensively with their seniors. They are led by a champion who is eager to meet Anwen on the battlefield.

Third, there is the assassin Cicatrix. He was initially sent by a Lygosi magnate to murder Vahid to avenge a petty insult, but after he failed on his first attempt, he was captured by the Stormcrows and brought before the hdour. Now, he acts as Cirl’s agent, but he remains motivated by the completion of his contract.

Finally, I think it’s worth considering treachery as a weapon the hdour might employ. After all, fortresses are more easily taken by mules laden with gold than siege towers and onagers. To preserve some surprise, I won’t go into depth about the most likely betrayers, but suffice it to say, the defenders of Gordin’s Delve are not one hundred percent loyal.

Our heroes and their allies

Heading up the defense of Gordin’s Delve are, of course, our heroes. Anwen is a powerhouse on the field of battle and Padrig can lead the defenders with shrewd tactics. Vahid’s mastery of the Azure Hand and the storm spirit bound in his Flying Cloak could be huge assets on the battlefield, but he will also likely have to focus his attention on countering the hdour’s magic rather than using his own.

Two of the Delve Bosses will certainly be on the field as well — Mutra the Teeth and Smiling Ffrancis. They have their own personal retinue of bravos — these folks are more street fighters than soldiers, but they’ve probably all survived at least one deadly scrap. Jahalim and Draig will lend some of their own bravos to the cause as well. All told, the bosses will field about 15 bravos. We’re acquainted with a few of these characters — like Cerdic Snake-Eye and Ollem the Stone from Mutra’s crew.

Padrig, Mutra, and the newly-released Judge, Abrim, have raised a muster from the citizenry of the Delve, and have roughly 100 able-bodied fighters armed with simple spears and given a few days of training. These people largely aren’t fighters, but they are defending their homes and families, which counts for something. Among them are a few people we know and care about — Rheisart, the apprentice blacksmith from Stonetop, and Axel, a prisoner Pad recruited from Odo Thriceborn’s slave pens, have shown some skill at arms and are eager to fight³.

We also have the remnants of Odo’s cult — pressed into battle to gain clemency for their crimes against the other Delvers. Odo trained them to fight, and some of them are infected with the Howling Curse, which can drive them into a monstrous fury in battle. Obviously, this is not good for them in both body and spirit, but desperate times might call for desperate measures. They are led by Dawa Eyegouger, Odo’s former consort. Also among their numbers — and infected with the Curse — is Young Brogan, an old member of Pad’s crew, whom the old bandit would dearly love to see safe through the fight.

The field of battle

So, we know the forces arrayed, and we know the characters we might choose to put into particular scenes to represent those forces. Now let’s take a look at a few locations where we might set scenes:

1. Sorrow’s Gate: Pictured above, Sorrow’s Gate is the main entrance to the tiered town⁴ of Gordin’s Delve, sealing the lowest level of the city off from the valley below. An imposing structure of bronze and stone, built by the Forge Lords centuries ago. It has never been taken by storm, but it is vulnerable to the hdour’s magic.

2. The Swap: The market street of Gordin’s Delve, on the third terrace. Madame Parvati’s brothel is located here, and she’ll hunker down there. If the raiders reach here, she could be in danger.

3. The Foundry: The grand Foundry, built by the Forge Lords, now controlled by Jahalim. This is the Stormcrow’s main objective — they want to reach here, breach the gates, and then the hdour intends to use his spirit magic to release the flame spirit bound into the Foundry’s foundations. If this happens, the spirit will run wild after centuries of imprisonment, eager to consume everything around it. It is located on the fourth terrace.

4. Jahalim’s Manor: Situated by the stairs to the third terrace. It is likely the most defensible structure in Gordin’s Delve, other than the Foundry (and perhaps Odo’s Lair). This could be a strongpoint for the heroes if they need protect someone or something from the hdour’s forces.

5. The Caravanserai: We’ve established there are a handful of fortified caravanserai in the Delve, which have stout doors and are quite defensible. When battle comes, many of the Delvers who cannot fight will seek refuge here.

6. The goat paths: Located on the eastern slopes of the mountains that surround the Delve, these treacherous paths lead through many switchbacks down to the third terrace and fourth terraces, uncomfortably close to both the Foundry and Jahalim’s manor.

7. A ruin in the mountains: Somewhere in the mountains, the hdour is encamped with some portion of his forces. The PCs don’t know where, but we caught a brief glimpse of it during the interlude after Session 10, where we saw the assassin Cicatrix captured by the Stormcrows.

When we paused our story, the PCs were considering marching out from the Delve to confront the hdour and his forces in the field. A risky maneuver, but one that could spare the Delve a costly and bloody assault, and perhaps even put paid to the sorcerer himself. We’ll close out the episode by putting that decision to a vote — but first, let’s talk a little about how the rules of Stonetop support big battles like this one.

The rules of war

Having gone through the forces and locations, lots of potential questions assert themselves: How is the hdour splitting his forces between Sorrow’s Gate and the Goat Paths, his two means of entry into the Delve? Who from the defenders are holding those two points? Who will defend the Foundry if the Stormcrows break through? Where will Vahid position himself to counter whatever magicks Cirl brings to bear? All these questions will help us envision the first few scenes of the battle, and from there, we’ll just follow the fiction. And as that fiction is unfolding, Stonetop gives us a useful move to adjudicate the results — the Deploy move. Here’s the text:

Source: Jeremy Strandberg // Stonetop

This move can be used quite zoomed out if you want to portray a battle in flashes and drive to a quick conclusion, but it can also be used to set a scene: For example, imagine that Anwen is leading a squad of the more skilled defenders in defense of the goat path, and they are confronted by Stormcrows, led by one of the storm-marked warriors. We set the scene with Anwen dueling the assassin while her defenders engage the other Stormcrows and make the Deploy roll to see how the battle around her proceeds.

Note that even on a 10+, the GM has a great deal of latitude to decide the outcome of the battle at large — ‘as well as expected’ can mean a small force is defeated on the field but nonetheless scores some important strategic victory before being killed, captured, or forced to retreat by a much larger one. In the example above, perhaps on a 10+, Anwen’s defenders can hold back the Stormcrows long enough for Anwen to defeat their champion, but then they are forced to retreat when another squad arrives to encircle them on the narrow goat paths.

And of course, if Anwen doesn’t defeat the champion in her scene, then ‘as well as can be expected’ is very bad indeed. Maybe she falls in battle, and her defenders rush forward to drag her body from the field, but many of them are slain before they manage to escape.

So, when I think ahead to the battle to come, I try to envision where the PCs might make their stands, and what tactical victories they’re looking to score: Things like holding Sorrow’s Gate, preventing the foe from entering the city through the goat trails, fighting a last, desperate defense at the gates of the Foundry, or Vahid using the power of the Azure Hand to still the storms called up by the hdour. Then I envision where (from the above list) the scene takes place, and who is present — which PCs will try to carry the fight, and which of their allies will stand beside them. From there, we’ll let the scenes unfold as they may, using the Muster move above to gauge the overall direction of the fight.

Then, I’ll use countdown clocks to track the overall resolve of each force. It wouldn’t be much fun (or very true-to-life) if the nomads or the Delvers fought to the last fighter. To model this, as the scenes unfold, I’ll mark sick-tick countdown clocks for each side. The Delvers outnumber the stormcrows three-to-one, but the Stormcrows are much more disciplined and experienced. Because many of the Delvers are untested in battle, the PCs might mark ticks even in a successful engagement, if the fight is costly, or they face foes with otherworldly powers.

When the Stormcrows’ clock is filled, they’ll quit the field, and our heroes can choose to pursue them or not. If the Delvers hit zero, their morale will collapse, and the PCs will be swept up in the retreat.

And that, in a nutshell, is how I like to approach mass combat in PbtA and other narrative games. If you’ve got other tricks up your sleeve, or have any questions about how to apply the above, I’d love to hear ‘em — leave a comment!

A dangerous gambit

Now, with all that preamble, we have a decision to make: The PCs have mustered their forces, and are planning the defense of the Delve. But someone — probably Vahid — might make the case that they are better off making their way into the mountains with a smaller, elite group, and ambushing the hdour’s forces in the wilds. If they manage to slay enough of the foe, they might render them too depleted to attempt a siege of the Delve, and if they slay the hdour himself, their troubles are, if not over, then greatly diminished.

But such a strike is risky — our heroes will all have to go to give it the best chance of victory, and if Vahid is wounded or slain, there will be no one who can counter the hdour’s power.

The Bosses will be reluctant to leave the safety of Sorrow’s Gate and their Caravanserai — they see the Delve’s defenses as their primary advantage. But after defeating Odo Thriceborn, our heroes command a great deal of respect, so people will follow them if they choose to strike first.

To kick off our new Stonetop season, I leave the choice up to you all: Will our heroes hold fast and let the Stormcrows brave the Delve’s defenses? Or will they seize the initiative and seek out his camp to strike first?

We’ll kick off the fiction in the next installment — I’m targeting 3/24 as the next drop, but if I’m feeling ambitious and the votes come in quickly, I’ll try to get it to you a week earlier, on the 17th. Thanks as always for reading!

1. This refers to Maël, whom we met in Session 10.4. He seems to be the hdour’s war leader, and he made a personal promise to seek Anwen out on the battlefield when next they meet.

2. Sorrow’s Gate is the grand entrance to the Delve, built centuries ago by the Forge Lords. Against a mundane force, it is nigh-impregnable.

3. In the Muster roll we made way back in Session 13, Padrig scored a 10+, and one of the options chosen was “A few individuals show real promise,” hence the calling out of specific NPCs. N.b., from the GM’s perspective, by naming Rheisart, we’re giving the PCs a boon but also adding drama to the mix — Anwen doesn’t want to see the young smith get hurt.

4. Recall that Gordin’s Delve is built on a series of terraces shaped by the Forge Lords. A central series of stairways connects them, and the mine entrances to the eponymous Delves are largely on the sixth terrace, where the valley closes into the Huffel Peaks’ imposing granite slopes.