Hey, I was tinkering around with “how I run battles” in DW and thought a formal page on it might be of interest.
It’s strongly narrative, and not really intended to simulate armies clashing so much as make for an exciting and “fair” frame around what the PCs are doing to change the course of the battle.
I would love to hear how everyone else handles it, too!
Wow, did you write this? I love everything about this.
I feel that you touched on just about everything that can occur in battles of this scale, I can’t think of much that doesn’t fit into what you’ve done. I also love the example edge moves, all the text in general is evocative and brings emotions and clear mental images into play. Great work!
EDIT: I have not used this so I cannot attest to how it holds up for me, but if I ever run a Powered by the Apocalypse game I am definitely planning on trying this!
This is really nicely done, and quite thought provoking!
I would definitely like to try this at some point. There is a certain beauty about it, and the single-page presentation is really nicely done.
Perhaps the only stumbling block I can see is that the “points” system has to do mostly with the circumstances before the battle begins, but reassigning points based on battle events is all about what is happening now. There could be some situations where that feels odd (for example, is it reasonable to say that capturing an important position on the field changes anyone’s Preparation, Stakes, or Experience?). Assigning a point based on such an event might feel funny in play. Then again, maybe not!
I think you’re really on to something, but struggle to really understand how it all hangs together. I think it’s suffering from being squeezed into a single page. For example I’m not quite clear how battle events trigger, and why they have 7-9 and 6- next to them. So a battle event is a rolled move? Rolled against what? Reinforcements arrive for who, presumable the enemy because it’s a 6- result?
I think you can solve this by having a page of rules and discussion, and a page with all the tables and moves on. That way you get more space to explain how it works, but once the players have ‘got it’ they can just use the reference sheet at the table.