The Alesia Gauntlet
The Battle of Alesia (52 B.C.) was a pivotal moment in Roman and French history. But the ruins of that battle set the stage for an amazing fantasy adventure! The physical remains of the Roman siegeworks present a wonderful obstacle and puzzle, and the history of what happened there sets up some excellent roleplay and […]
PCs on the Battlefield: the Caste War
As I’ve written about before, the best way to make a party of PCs stand out in a large war or battlefield is to put them in special situations where they can really shine. Before, we looked at three such situations during the Crusades that you can model an encounter on. Now we’re going to […]
PCs on the Battlefield: The Crusades
Many RPG campaigns involve wars. But wars are enormous affairs, with tens or hundreds of thousands of combatants on each side. How do you make a single party of PCs stand out? The received wisdom is not to put them in the center of the battle, where gameplay is repetitive and the PCs can’t contribute […]
PCs as Soldiers – Irregular Officers
Sometimes, you want to play a soldier, even when no one else does. Ming warriors looked snappy on parade, Green Berets have access to cool weapons, and Gurkhas are just plain badass. But soldier PCs can’t go where they want or behave as they will. This problem can be mitigated when the whole party’s a […]
Female Soldiers in Disguise
Women were not permitted to be soldiers in the American Civil War. Nonetheless, women on both sides adopted male disguises and signed up. In their exhaustively researched book They Fought Like Demons: Women Soldiers in the Civil War, historians DeAnne Blanton and Lauren M. Cook claim to have uncovered evidence of about 250 such soldiers. […]
The Marquis de St. Jacques and 1-Year Anniversary
An obscure figure from Indian colonial history, the Marquis de St. Jacques (pronounced ’Sa Jack’) was a French renegade, a mercenary, a scoundrel, and a great inspiration for a similar NPC at your table. The Marquis de St. Jacques (all the sources I can find refer to him only by that name) was a soldier […]
Zany PC Schemes from Xenophon
Normally I write material for GMs, but players, this one’s for you. Any player worth her salt is always coming up with clever schemes to bypass the GM’s obstacles. That’s part of the fun of the game! It often happens, though, that these schemes are a little… unconventional. “You’re crazy!” the GM cries. “That would […]
The Zeigler Strike
The 1904-1909 worker’s strike at a coal mine outside Zeigler, Illinois was the closest thing to open warfare you’re likely to see in a country at peace. American strikes around the turn of the century were notoriously violent, but Zeigler was noteworthy for the military-style tactics both sides used. On one side, you had a […]
Holmes’ Bonfire
Holmes’ Bonfire was a 1666 British naval raid on a Dutch merchant fleet and small town. The British burned the town and sank 150 Dutch merchant ships, but lost only a half-dozen men and killed about as many. Thus, using a sack based on Holmes’ Bonfire at the gaming table lets you play for high […]
House-to-House Combat Encounter from 1756
Lieutenant Thomas Blagg’s defense of a British mansion in the 1756 siege of Calcutta was a footnote in the overall battle. Though valorous, it had no real impact on the siege’s outcome. Still, it makes a great template for a setpiece combat encounter in your own campaign. The siege was a relatively brief affair marked […]