Campaign by Design

Part Four: Dogs of War 1

—By Talanall

As promised, I am back to begin a discussion of warfare in Dungeons and Dragons. Warfare and other disasters are often the backdrop of a campaign. In the next several columns I plan to discuss a whole range of topics related to in-game warfare. The emphasis will be on war's effects on a campaign world's economics, politics, religion and other aspects that many Dungeon Masters might consider background material; I will spend some time on game mechanics during this discussion, but read with the expectation that I will use mechanics to make a point about campaign development rather than to provide a guide on how to turn Dungeons and Dragons into a war game. Finally, remember that this is a big topic, so I will subdivide the discussion into multiple columns.

It's impossible to have a war without soldiers, so I will start by saying that in broad terms, soldiers fall into one of three categories. The first and most common are little more than rabble who arm themselves or are armed in order for them to fight as expendable shock troops. The next step up from cannon fodder are those soldiers who belong to some kind of organized militia that drills more or less regularly and can afford to buy and maintain arms and armor. Finally, professional soldiers who pursue warfare or preparations for it full-time represent the highest tier of soldiers with the best training and equipment.

Les Enfants Perdus

Also known as cannon fodder, the forlorn hope and redshirts, conscripts are soldiers who are forced into military service against their will and without being given substantial combat training. At best, these unfortunates are provided with food, a bedroll, and a weapon. At worst, they are herded along until battle is joined, at which point they are driven like sheep into combat. Owing to their generally poor supplies, training and treatment by their officers, conscripts tend to have poor morale. They go into battle reluctantly and flee from battle at the first opportunity—even if they enjoy an overwhelming numerical advantage that could make up for their poor supplies and nonexisting training.

It is safe to assume that conscripted soldiers are unarmored (even a very humble suit of padded cloth armor is likely to cost more than these hapless peasants' monthly income) and armed with daggers, clubs or quarterstaves. They are likely to be proficient with whatever weapon they carry, since any commoner is proficient with one simple weapon of his choice. If they are driven along by a particularly charismatic or brutal commander and deployed at just the right moment, these peasant levies can actually overrun better equipped forces through sheer weight of numbers. But this should be the exception rather than the rule; it requires a sustained fight that most conscripts are not disciplined enough to carry through.

Conscripts are a greater threat when one or more of the following conditions prevail:

1. They are cornered and unable to flee from battle
2. They are more afraid of their commanders than they are afraid of death
3. They are motivated by religious promises that make them unafraid of death

In these cases, conscripts do not fight any more capably. They are more persistent, however, which makes them correspondingly more dangerous. A lucky swing with a quarterstaff can drop even an armored knight . . . and if a mob of several hundred terrified or religion-crazed peasants refuses to run away and swings faster than they can be massacred, sooner or later they will get lucky.

Being poor, undisciplined rabble, conscripts suffer greatly from the horrors of warfare. This leads to a feeling of powerlessness and anger that makes them at least as hard to control in victory as in defeat. Those conscripts fortunate enough to survive an assault on a fortified settlement are likely to commit atrocities against its inhabitants, regardless of their leaders' wishes. Since they collect little or no pay, conscript soldiers often consider rape and looting their due, and may mutiny if their officers try to deny them this privilege.

Aside from the difficulty of controlling conscripts in or out of battle, there is an economic cost involved in using them. Conscripts are the people who plow fields, mine for ore, load wagons and perform the drudge work associated with all sorts of industries. If they are called away to war and stay too long or if they are slaughtered too freely, there are deleterious economic consequences on their homelands. Commanders who use conscripts have to time their military campaigns so that there are enough hands available to bring in the harvest in the autumn and plant crops in the spring. If they are spendthrift of these troops' lives, famine is likely even after a victory.

Militia

Unlike conscripts, militia forces usually have some choice about whether to go into battle, and they generally have better supplies and training to prepare them for conflict. This leads to generally better morale for these forces, and makes them more predictable and effective in warfare. This category of soldier still offers considerable space for variation because it encompasses a spectrum of forces ranging from volunteers who purchase and drill with weapons and armor as part of a local defense force (like the burghal hidage in Anglo-Saxon England) to citizen-soldiers who are obligated to serve a defined tour of duty in exchange for the right to vote, own property, or hold political office (as in many ancient Greek city-states). So keep in mind that the true quality of a "militia" force can be so poor that it is barely more than peasant rabble, or so high that it matches the capability of a professional army in terms of discipline, skill, and equipment.

Because militia forces vary so much, it is difficult to make valid predictions of the kind of troops included in their ranks. But a few points do remain constant. Most importantly, militia soldiers are not full-time men of war. They have farms, businesses, or jobs, and the soldiering is a side concern. A protracted war or one with too many casualties offers the same consequences to societies that rely on militia as it does to societies that rely on conscripts. Famine, economic depression, and similar repercussions follow from the absence or death of a large chunk of the labor force.

Unlike with conscripts, militia soldiers are relatively unlikely to be thrown into battle as shock troops, heedless of the casualty rates that accompany such use. By and large, their superior training and armament shields them from such treatment. Another important factor that protects militia from callous or incompetent commanders is that they are composed of volunteers. The better discipline and morale of these units makes them harder to push around off the battlefield as well as on it, and the fact that they often have a well-developed command structure further insulates them against the machinations of generals too unscrupulous, arrogant or inexperienced to deploy them responsibly.

Militia soldiers typically are at their best in defensive warfare rather than on the offense. At root, this is because they fight for practical reasons instead of for ideology or money. By far the majority of combat actions involving militia are engagements fought on ground that is familiar to the militia, in response to attacks from outside of the area which they have trained to protect. Because they are concerned with local defense, mobility is a secondary concern for these soldiers. Their equipment is chosen to be as effective as possible against as many kinds of threat as possible, to be as easy to use as possible, and to be as inexpensive as possible. As I will discuss in a later installment of this series of articles, militia cavalry are an oddity for these reasons. Despite the fact that charging lancers or swift, merciless mounted bowmen are terrifyingly effective, their gear, training, and livestock are so expensive as to be prohibitive for most militia armies.

Professional Forces

A ruler's small band of elite bodyguards, a standing army of a large nation and a band of ragtag mercenaries have the common characteristic of making their livings by warfare. Despite this common point of reference, they come to their professions for vastly different reasons, use different tactics and carry different equipment. Professional soldiers are not necessarily better at their chosen vocation than the part-time militia I have already discussed, and they do not necessarily have better morale and discipline. What sets them apart is that their ability to specialize. Where a militia force is likely to focus on simple tactics and generic equipment that can be applied to a wide range of martial confrontations, professionals can drill with unusual weapons or prepare specialized tactics to meet the demands of a specific type of engagement or terrain.

Professional soldiers are usually motivated by money, ideology, or a combination of the two. Because they are always members of an organized unit of some kind, it is normal for these men (and women, if it is appropriate to your setting) to have a certain degree of espirt de corps. This pride in one's comrades and the abilities and accomplishments of one's unit has a positive effect on morale and discipline during military operations, but in peacetime settings it can lead to brawls and other sorts of rivalry between the soldiers of a unit and those they see as competitors.

As I mentioned earlier, cavalry troops are expensive for private citizens to train and supply to the degree needed to make them effective in battle. This limitation holds true for all but the largest mercenary companies, as well, but rulers and nations have greater resources which makes this burden easier to bear. Additionally, the mobility and responsiveness of cavalry troops makes them attractive as part of a standing army or force of bodyguards. A force of well-trained soldiers who can ride to where they are needed in time to engage an enemy represents a considerable return on investment, especially in societies that depend heavily upon the availability of plentiful laborers in peacetime.

Next time, get your heads ready for a discussion of game mechanics in the context of military units and warfare. I will discuss the relative merits of weapon choices, armor and shields, and give some pointers about the kinds of armament that people should expect to see in the hands of a given kind of soldier.