Greetings!

As a historian, I love all kinds of military history in particular. It has amazed me through the years to learn of the progression and diversity in engineering, fortifications, and siege weaponry, as well as defenses. Some of the techniques and inventions were quite amazing and occasionally even revolutionary. then, of course, there are whole ranges of little details and techniques, like the style of fortress crenellations, or the shape of the bottom part of a trench or moat. Try making your moats and trenches have angular, reverse-triangular bottoms, instead of flat bottoms. Various styles of stakes, traps, and berm creation, elevating or making trenches more durable and responsive in a defensive struggle. The floorplans of inner gatehouses and courtyards specifically designed through physics and space dominance to change the flow, mobility, and reactions of troops entering a fortress. So many aspects and dynamics able to rack up an almost unavoidable body count for the invaders--all while being prosecuted by a *minimum* number of defending troops. Krak De Chevalliere in the Levant as I recall was perhaps the most modern and lethally designed fortress of the age--it allowed the Knight Templars to withstand attacks and sieges from Muslim armies that vastly outnumbered them, for great stretches of time.

I think all of these kinds of details can add dimensions to a campaign, as well as interesting dynamics. Different kinds of adventures can also be developed and featured for a campaign. Yes, the "High Fantasy" people can insist the easy access to superhero magic and dragons make all of these details irrelevant. However, I generally run campaigns that are low-magic to moderate magic at least to some degree, where Wish spells, flying, and dragons don't show up in every battle and at every siege. YMMV.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Swivel guns make for an excellent defense against flying attackers. If your flying enemy isn't too large (i.e. a dragon), you can load shot pellets in for a greater chance to hit a moving foe.  Failing that, there's always the crossbow. 

The GURPS spell Earth To Air is extremely hard on fortifications.

I wrote an article in Dragon #295 "Fit for a King -The history, evolution, construction, and inhabitants of castles from East to West."

It really is a fascinating topic which for GM's that want to sandbox is worth diving into if only to color their own descriptions of castles (standing or ruined) and understanding why castles evolved from motte-and-bailey type constructions to the mega-castles that appeared after the Crusades when Europeans upgraded their construction after facing the Islamic fortresses of the Levant.

He brought arrowslits, concentric construction, reinforced thicker wall construction and sloping. He went on castle-building spree.

Of course alongside that, their siegecraft improved too.

For gaming purposes, it helps to understand the how's and why's castles are constructed if only to understand the extreme cost in doing so. I think that it might be details that would require some decent guidance in terms of PC's creating their own structures - which of course I provide in the article. I think 5e's Stronghold book from Matt Colville does a lot of the scutwork for you, I haven't looked at it and I can't comment on its quality.

But yeah it's super interesting! And worthy of any game where detail matters. Especially if you're sandboxing with Stronghold-level play.

  The Roman Empire was built on siege craft and constantly innovation of same.   They were very good in the field, but at sieges they reigned supreme for their time, and honestly maybe for all time.  What they pulled off at Mossad was beyond amazing with regards to sheer effort and sustained logistics. 

Some of the best castles in an RPG that I have ever seen come from the Hârn setting.  Based on 12-13th century castles, they really capture the closed-in feel of a castle. Hârn books are pricey.

Dragon Magazine #145, was almost wholly devoted to castles, my favorite article from it being "Strongholds Three" by Arthur Collins, where he gives floorplans for three castles a DM can swipe.  The firstonelooks very realistic, the other two are fantastical, but useful if you needed a non-human stronghold.

Most of the castles in early D&D books seem laughable, with 1' thick walls, and a rectangular shape, presumably so they can fit on the page better. The exception being Ravenloft (Dungeon Module I6), which looks like a castle, but is drawn isometrically, so using it at a battle map reauires re-drawing.

I find it interesting where the various engineering feats go past what the usual combat engineer can do and get into even more extreme specialists.

No idea whatsoever if it was accurate, but I vaguely remember an old TV show where they wanted to counter the assertion that the claimed rate of fire of the early Roman trebuchet (or precursor to it, forget which) could not have possibly been accurate, on the grounds that it wasn't possible to calculate the math needed that fast in Roman numerals.  I'm always a little skeptical of statements about what can't be done in those practical realms, because I've seen too many carpenters, some without even a high school education--using all kinds of tricks to make practical use of applied trigonometry with extremely accurate results.  The problem, of course, is that we don't know what tricks the Romans used for some of that.

Would also be fun to take fantastical engineering in another direction, where the magic provides the theory and the testing ground for learning the shortcuts for the engineering. Sure, move earth is a powerful spell when used crudely.  If used with some forethought and supported by a trained group of people used to getting the maximum out of it, it could be even more impressive.

Quote from: Svenhelgrim on July 10, 2021, 05:49:17 AM
Dragon Magazine #145, was almost wholly devoted to castles, my favorite article from it being "Strongholds Three" by Arthur Collins, where he gives floorplans for three castles a DM can swipe.  The firstonelooks very realistic, the other two are fantastical, but useful if you needed a non-human stronghold.

Those were preceded in Dragon 86 by Great Stoney, which is by the same author and uses the same floorplan style. Except the three castles in issue 145 were relatively small (an elf hill, a pass-blocking fort, and a small but very secure castle IIRC), while Great Stoney is much bigger. Plus, you can literally build it yourself -- the issue included inserts on cardstock, designed to be cut out and assembled.

It's also worth mentioning "Who Lives In That Castle?" by Katharine Kerr, in issue 80. It not as focused on the military aspects as other articles, but it's an excellent survey of how castles were organized and run.

Anything by Arthur Collins or Katherine Kerr is excellent. They were among the best authors in the history of Dragon.