Exploring how you can fight 2d6 giant rats without individually tracking the HP for each one. Massive Darkness 2: Hellscape might provide some design inspiration.
Mork Dod, a chainsaw weilding, demon slaughtering Borg hack has HORDES. The horde HP equal to individuals in the horde (so basically 1HP each). There are stronger unique ones, but they are like 3 HP. Makes it easy to keep track of.
Then to HIT, the difficult rating is 13 minus the # of minions. So a horde with 13+ = autohit. 5 minions= DR8.
Then the horde attacks. Defensive DR is 12+ (1DR for every 5 minions). So 20 minions = DR16. 5 minions= DR13.
Horde's damage is easy too. Make D12 dmg, you roll what every dice is closest to the number of minions. 5 minions = D6, 20 minions = D12 (that is probably the weakest element of this system. It should be D20, which is what I use anyway). for like 16 minions, I would roll a D12 +d4.
I like this system that I usually incorporate it in all my games I run since it's the simplest and fastest while also being terrifying when I throw over 2 dozen screaming undead sprinting at them in the complete darkness.
If we're really going to go back to the beginning and look for where this stepped into the RPG sphere, it takes us all the way back to day one, where original Dungeons and Dragons split off from Chainmail and was intended to be used in concert with Chainmail.
Even at the individual dungeon scale, early D&D clumped vermin like swarms of rats into unified swarm stat blocks, and they acted like a single creature.
As someone else pointed out, Tunnels and Trolls in '75 very much does this, and it is the primary mechanism by which combat is resolved. When a party goes up against multiple targets, the GM adds all their monster ratings together into a combined die pool and modifier total, and then as the party takes their actions and gets their results, the lowered MR reduces the group's dice on subsequent rounds.
This is sort of the ultimate form of swarm resolution. It's also really fast and quite good. If you've never played Tunnels and Trolls, you should look into it.
Then we go to 87 for Star Wars from WEG, where stormtroopers, not surprisingly, get a Combined Action, which lets a group of them act with a single roll.
This actually comes up a lot in RPGs, and to one degree or another, most of the RPGs I've played in the last several decades have mechanics which cover it.
You have a much wider experience with classic TTRPGs than me! Thank you for sharing this!
Sounds like "swarms" and "mobs" is a topic that keeps coming up and solutions being (re)invented for it. I had no idea Tunnels and Trolls used it so extensively fifty years ago.
The drawback and the advantage of being an archivist curator of the field. You end up sitting on piles and piles and piles of games from 50 years ago to five minutes ago. If there's one thing I've got the resources to do, it's comparative analysis.
Hmm … mob rules; not aiming for any particular mob member; could take out several:
Charette & Hume’s Aftermath (Phoenix Games, 1980; FGU, 1981) had rules for mobs: the more surviving members, the deadlier the mob’s single attack and the more distracting it was to those fighting it; you could take out multiple mob members with one blow if that blow did enough damage, though the number of mob members affected was capped at your Deftness Group (i.e. it was a function of the character’s dexterity). The term mob was used by the designers, and the rule was to deal with numerous small foes — rats! The game seemed easy enough to run, at the time, but nowadays would seem very clunky, I am sure.
One might characterize all fights in the not-quite-the-OG RPG, Tunnels & Trolls (Flying Buffalo, 1975), as mob vs. mob: the strength of the mob depends on its members (and how injured they are); each side rolls its “pool” of dice and does some addition (let us not get into combat adds and monster ratings); the losing side receives an undifferentiated chunk of damage from the winning side (difference between their pool sums) to distribute among its members. It is attritional: a thinned out or weakened mob is less dangerous — rolls fewer dice next time. A weakened individual is also less dangerous (details vary by edition); you don’t need multiple foes to use this kind of mechanic.
The observations above are not original — others will have said similar things about these games and others — but these were games I played way back when and of which I still had copies to check my memories against. Early RPG designers — and players — were wargamers, so these mechanics didn’t seem innovative at the time: tot up the strengths of stacks of counters; maybe roll some dice; check the CRT; remove some counters.
Is Hellscape just using mobs to distinguish between foes which do (mobs) and do not (bosses?) roll fewer dice as you chip away at them? I am assuming the members of Hellscape mobs cannot split off and act independently (unlike T&T characters and wargame counters).
Was just talking about Tunnels & Trolls with someone the other day. They had backed the recent crowdfunding campaign because it seemed to have such a following. Although I wasn't familiar with it directly, it was notable that so many had a love for it. The dice pool mob system seems cool. I'll see if I can find a free version of that part to check out online.
And you're right. Mobs are basically foes that degrade with hits. Their individual members (minions) can never split off and act alone. They are always tied together in a big mass. The size of which determines the enemy dice.
MD2:Hellscape is, after all, a dice-chucking dungeon crawling board game. Not the deepest narrative experience. ;)
Mork Dod, a chainsaw weilding, demon slaughtering Borg hack has HORDES. The horde HP equal to individuals in the horde (so basically 1HP each). There are stronger unique ones, but they are like 3 HP. Makes it easy to keep track of.
Then to HIT, the difficult rating is 13 minus the # of minions. So a horde with 13+ = autohit. 5 minions= DR8.
Then the horde attacks. Defensive DR is 12+ (1DR for every 5 minions). So 20 minions = DR16. 5 minions= DR13.
Horde's damage is easy too. Make D12 dmg, you roll what every dice is closest to the number of minions. 5 minions = D6, 20 minions = D12 (that is probably the weakest element of this system. It should be D20, which is what I use anyway). for like 16 minions, I would roll a D12 +d4.
I like this system that I usually incorporate it in all my games I run since it's the simplest and fastest while also being terrifying when I throw over 2 dozen screaming undead sprinting at them in the complete darkness.
That's interesting! Though it does make me do subtraction in my head. ;)
I should check out Mork Dod. Keeps coming up in my readings. Thanks for this comment!
If we're really going to go back to the beginning and look for where this stepped into the RPG sphere, it takes us all the way back to day one, where original Dungeons and Dragons split off from Chainmail and was intended to be used in concert with Chainmail.
Even at the individual dungeon scale, early D&D clumped vermin like swarms of rats into unified swarm stat blocks, and they acted like a single creature.
As someone else pointed out, Tunnels and Trolls in '75 very much does this, and it is the primary mechanism by which combat is resolved. When a party goes up against multiple targets, the GM adds all their monster ratings together into a combined die pool and modifier total, and then as the party takes their actions and gets their results, the lowered MR reduces the group's dice on subsequent rounds.
This is sort of the ultimate form of swarm resolution. It's also really fast and quite good. If you've never played Tunnels and Trolls, you should look into it.
Then we go to 87 for Star Wars from WEG, where stormtroopers, not surprisingly, get a Combined Action, which lets a group of them act with a single roll.
This actually comes up a lot in RPGs, and to one degree or another, most of the RPGs I've played in the last several decades have mechanics which cover it.
You have a much wider experience with classic TTRPGs than me! Thank you for sharing this!
Sounds like "swarms" and "mobs" is a topic that keeps coming up and solutions being (re)invented for it. I had no idea Tunnels and Trolls used it so extensively fifty years ago.
Thank you for your comment!
The drawback and the advantage of being an archivist curator of the field. You end up sitting on piles and piles and piles of games from 50 years ago to five minutes ago. If there's one thing I've got the resources to do, it's comparative analysis.
Hmm … mob rules; not aiming for any particular mob member; could take out several:
Charette & Hume’s Aftermath (Phoenix Games, 1980; FGU, 1981) had rules for mobs: the more surviving members, the deadlier the mob’s single attack and the more distracting it was to those fighting it; you could take out multiple mob members with one blow if that blow did enough damage, though the number of mob members affected was capped at your Deftness Group (i.e. it was a function of the character’s dexterity). The term mob was used by the designers, and the rule was to deal with numerous small foes — rats! The game seemed easy enough to run, at the time, but nowadays would seem very clunky, I am sure.
One might characterize all fights in the not-quite-the-OG RPG, Tunnels & Trolls (Flying Buffalo, 1975), as mob vs. mob: the strength of the mob depends on its members (and how injured they are); each side rolls its “pool” of dice and does some addition (let us not get into combat adds and monster ratings); the losing side receives an undifferentiated chunk of damage from the winning side (difference between their pool sums) to distribute among its members. It is attritional: a thinned out or weakened mob is less dangerous — rolls fewer dice next time. A weakened individual is also less dangerous (details vary by edition); you don’t need multiple foes to use this kind of mechanic.
The observations above are not original — others will have said similar things about these games and others — but these were games I played way back when and of which I still had copies to check my memories against. Early RPG designers — and players — were wargamers, so these mechanics didn’t seem innovative at the time: tot up the strengths of stacks of counters; maybe roll some dice; check the CRT; remove some counters.
Is Hellscape just using mobs to distinguish between foes which do (mobs) and do not (bosses?) roll fewer dice as you chip away at them? I am assuming the members of Hellscape mobs cannot split off and act independently (unlike T&T characters and wargame counters).
Was just talking about Tunnels & Trolls with someone the other day. They had backed the recent crowdfunding campaign because it seemed to have such a following. Although I wasn't familiar with it directly, it was notable that so many had a love for it. The dice pool mob system seems cool. I'll see if I can find a free version of that part to check out online.
And you're right. Mobs are basically foes that degrade with hits. Their individual members (minions) can never split off and act alone. They are always tied together in a big mass. The size of which determines the enemy dice.
MD2:Hellscape is, after all, a dice-chucking dungeon crawling board game. Not the deepest narrative experience. ;)
As always, thank you for your comment!