Quote from: Elfdart;577898I don't rate it by body count either, just an assessment of how much of an effect the PCs could have on the battlefield. For example, even if the PCs do manage to steal the Grand Poobah's battle plans, if he's got 100,000 horsebowmen and lancers and the side the PCs are fighting for has 10,000 light footmen on the march in open terrain then the massacre -er, battle will still commence.

Eh PCs don't have much of a chance when lined up before a firing squad either, it doesn't seem that relevant here.

I created a semi abstract mass battle sytem for an Amber Card game I created.
I wrote a modified version of it on the coloborative game design thread here.

I have used it in the raw since and its pretty good for giving you a quick clear resolution of a mass battle that you can still hang enough narative onto for it to make sense in an RPG

I'm a big fan of the L5R mass combat rules (don't remember the edition), so I use a variant of that.  The basic idea is that each player decides their character's level of engagement in the fighting (reserves, disengaged, engaged, heavily engaged), which determines their risk of injury, but also increases the chance of turning the tide of battle.  The results of that affect the general's opposed roll, which can result in winning, losing, or a stalemate.  X number of winning rolls in a roll means the battle is won.

The PCs make some kind of roll involving tactics, and have heroic opportunities (bear the standard, protect general, attack archers, attack wizards, take enemy standard, attack enemy general, etc.).  Last time I ran a mass battle, the PCs had word of enemy heroes that were at the battle, and had a chance of running into them and dueling.  It created a lot of anticipation and tension, and is one of the few times I was able to get other players to follow along with one-on-one combats they weren't involved in.

I need to find an excuse for mass combat again - it's been a long time.