User:Spazalicious Chaos/The Book of Frenzied Warfare (3.5e Sourcebook)/Mass Combat/Introduction

Welcome to the Kings Army!
... And may the gods have mercy on your soul. Lets face it: mass combat scares the shit out of player and GM alike. The ideas of D&D were centered around individual action and the heroics of a small number of people. And it is fantastic for that, up until you decide to try and play through anything 1/10th the size of the Battle of Helms Deep. For anyone who has played in a game with 10+ players, I can hear your agonized groans at the very thought of playing that. Here is why...

... from the players view
As a player, you have the blessing of playing a supreme badass and only that one supreme badass. Fuck what Jimmy the Torch Bearer wants to do, Austantigos is going to teleport behind that stone giant and chain lightning his ass and the ass of all his orc buddies.

Where things fall apart for you is when your badass is one of... well, anything over 20 combatants has the average player crying tears of boredom. Valorian kills orc one! YES! But now you have to wait an hour for your friends and each of the 49 other orcs resolve their actions... WHAT THE FUCK!!! With any other D&D game, now you have to go and play Halo or bake some cookies while you wait for it to be your turn again.

But not you. Ye of great fortune, thou hast found an online page of extreme epic win that tine printer can summon to thine Master of The Game and say, "NAY! Thous shalt form thine legions into units, and thus banish thine boredom that thou hast plagued thy campaign with for too long!"

... from the GMs view
As a GM, it is your job to play, plan, and prepare everything the player are NOT. You have to be every mountain, every evil villain, every happy villager, and every soldier.

By now, you have almost certainly ran a game or eight where the players were up against a force of evil with a shit load of minions. Like many GMs, you probably got tired of the bullshit skirmishing and supply choking and want the player to try their mettle in a real battle. The smartest of us laughed that idea away as soon as it came up. Those of us that aren't so smart (myself included) tried running that great battled and nearly died of boredom. It probably went something like this:
 * GM- Alright, what do you want to do, Dave?
 * Dave- I'm casting a widened fireball! (Rolls) Aw, only 15 damage...
 * GM- (curses under breath: shit, I had hope!) Alright, that spell will leave some survivors within the blast radius, which has (peeks at battle mat) 52 orcs... (all groan) Here we go. (rolls) save... (rolls) miss... (rolls) save... (rolls) save... (and so it continues on into the night...)

But now you have a weapon. Now you can run a truly massive battle and only worry about a mere fraction of the forced arrayed against the brave heros that belly up to your table and slam their dice bags down upon it, demanding to be entertained. Now, you have a light against the boredom.