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Long time readers of the blog will know that I have an interest in RPG or Role-Playing Games. Therefore, I also have an interest in the overlap between wargaming and RPG games. In RPG games, a player often only controls a single player in the game, while in a Wargame the player controls multiple characters. Therefore, there is a big difference between the play experiences. Wargames came first, and RPGs grew out of the wargaming scene by changing the "scale" of the games. The closely linked nature of the two types of games is interesting to me.

What is RPG-Lite

Typically, a wargame is interested in resolving the 4Ms within the game. Those 4Ms are Movement, Missiles, Melee, and Morale. When you add RPG-Lite elements you are adding a few more pillars into game play, and adding more options a player can follow to resolve the game.

Typically, RPGs have a different set of criteria beyond the 4Ms. Those are commonly referred to as the Pillars of Gameplay. In this case, RPGs use the following as the basic forms of the game; Exploration, Social, Combat, and Intrigues.

When a wargame includes elements of RPG-lite it is allowing players to resolve conflicts within the game outside of just the 4M process and instead dip into the RPG Pillars of Gameplay as a form of resolution.

So, typically in a wargame you resolve a challenge by either shooting it or hitting it with a stick. If you are adding elements of RPG-Lite a player could resolve a challenge with a social ability, Intrigue, or even exploration.

Here is an example in gameplay. Player A has a unit standing on the objective. Player B moves his unit up, and the commander of that unit tries to "bribe" the unit holding the objective to move. The game has a mechanism to resolve the bribe attempt, and the result is Player A's unit leaves the objective, and Player B's unit occupies it. The challenge of moving Player A's unit off the objective was not resolved by shooting or melee. It was resolved by an intrigue. This is RPG-Lite in a wargame.



If this topic interests you, take a look on the blog for some more thoughts on the subject.
http://bloodandspectacles.blogspot.com/2023/09/wargame-design-rpg-lite-and-wargaming.html

Thanks for reading and I look forward to your thoughts on the topic. I look forward to hearing a wide array of constructive criticism and more detailed, better thoughts from the larger group.

If you play AD&D, there is 2e BattlleSystem Skirmish: 2e AD&D rules-based miniatures game. It reduces combat to a fast, and deadly, simple set of rules.

If interested, it can be purchased as a PDF, for $4.99, off of DriveThruRPG.com. It has a painting guide, which is old, and dated, but still useful to a beginner. To be honest, you will want/need the 2e RPG core books, if you want to dive deep into it, but these are also available as PDF's, and as POD's, on DriveThruRPG.

For a Fighter/Warrior, they get 1 Hit (Hit Point) per level, so a 15th level Fighter, has 15 Hits, while a 4th Level Fighter only has 4 Hits. Every successful Hit, causes 1 Hit of damage, so low-level characters and monsters will expire, quickly! High Level Warriors also get multiple attacker per Round...

Non-Warrior characters have fewer Hits/Level. The RPG aspect is still there, in full force. It drastically simplifies, and speeds up, combat resolution.

It really focuses on the miniatures, and the tabletop terrain, pretty much eliminating Theater of the Mind.

The 2e BS Skirmishes game was quite well done, but few people played it. I've run a few one-off games, not using RPG PC's. I just wanted to test drive the game, to see what it was like. It was actually a lot of fun. It was decidedly more Miniatures Gaming, rather than RPG gaming. I used full 3D terrain, and a number of miniatures. I had a group of heroes going against Driders, Trolls, and Giants, as servants for a Red Dragon. The heroes actually whooped the Dragon, killing it. It was a lot of fun. My players had never experienced a full terrain and miniatures game, that was not a mass battles game, before. They quite enjoyed it. Cheers!

I don't think it makes much sense, for reasons that are right there in the title: WARgame. You're simulating an armed conflict between military forces that are committed to defeating the other side, non-combat resolutions aren't really included in that scope. And if you make a game with the right scope you just end up with a conventional RPG.

I dunno, Necromunda is clearly a wargame but also has rules for stuff like visiting a doctor, bartering for better guns, hiring noncombatant cooks and running a casino on the side.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
I dunno, Necromunda is clearly a wargame but also has rules for stuff like visiting a doctor, bartering for better guns, hiring noncombatant cooks and running a casino on the side.

That's not really the same thing as what OP was talking about. There's some between games bookkeeping where you generate your army lists but once you start engaging in a game with another player it's strictly combat. You don't, for example, use your character's diplomacy skills to cooperate with your opponent's gang in an attempt to steal from the cops, track down leads to find the corrupt cop you need to bribe for access, pick the lock on the warehouse, etc, and get out without shots ever being fired.