Part of my early-rpg-gaming study has involved reading the Chainmail rules and how those were used, not only for minis wargame play, but also play of OD&D. As Chainmail is a wargame, most of what it provides is rules for combat, so it’s an integral part of studying the OG RPG combat rules.

One of the most interesting tidbits to be found in Chainmail is that it has three combat systems. Yeah, it offers a mass combat system for use with miniatures wargame scenarios, a man-to-man system for individuals beating on each other, and a fantasy combat system for dealing with monsters. The rules text as a whole offers up a lot of information on the earliest fighting rules and there’s much to be gathered from reading the text.

Procedures Provide Structure

One aspect shared across all three systems is that they’re all broken down procedurally in play. It’s this procedural step-by-step approach that provides a great deal of the verisimilitude among the abstractions made in the rules. The use of phases provides a feel for how action proceeds apace, yet some activity most often precedes other activity and that difference helps ground the whole in time. I compare stepping through phases here (as with B/X and OSE) with the free-for-all of AD&D and find that using phases does make a difference in flavor, at least for me, so I figure there are other players for whom it makes a difference, too.

The phases provide some structure for the abstractions, especially when dealing with actions that aren’t described in the Advanced rules, such as split-fire missile actions. The phase structure places the initial move early in the round, the missile attack later, and the final move segment after. Let’s look at how it plays out:

THE MOVE/COUNTER MOVE SYSTEM

  1. Both opponent’s roll a die; the side with the higher score has the choice of
    electing to move first (Move) or last (Counter-move).
  2. The side that has first move moves its figures and makes any split-moves
    and missile fire, taking any pass-through fire possible at the same time.
  3. The side that has last move now moves its figures and makes any split-moves
    and missile fire, taking any pass-through fire possible at the same time.
  4. Artillery fire is taken.
  5. Missile fire is taken.
  6. Melees are resolved.
  7. Steps 1 through 6 are repeated throughout the remainder of the game.
    Note:Missile fire from split-moving troops is considered to take effect immedia-
    tely during the movement portion of the turn, and the same is true of pass-
    through fire. All other fire, both artillery and missile, is considered to
    simultaneously take effect just prior to melee resolution.

This provides a basic feel for time advancing through the round. This feel is enhanced by stepping through artillery fire and general missile fire and melee. While there are arguments to be made about having the chaos of battle reflected in simultaneous resolution for everything, I find the feel of time progressing during a round to be preferable. The switching from player to player and monster to monster with simultaneous resolution doesn’t provide the same.

I also believe that stepping through the phases in play helps GMs develop a feel for how to approach play, in general. Building a habit of taking matters one step at a time during resolution can help GMs provide consistency in adjudication and that helps with the verisimilitude of the setting.

The rules also offer a list of possible actions to take. This list is predicated on minis play, of course, and yet most of what it describes can also happen in man-to-man and fantasy play — split-move fire, pass-through fire, indirect fire, direct fire, cover, charging, and melee. Yes, a player could have a PC do something not on the list, yet the list illustrates the variety of possible combat action just by its size and what it covers. I suspect most GMs could study that section of Chainmail and come away with a better understanding of all the things that can happen and how to sequence them and adjudicate them, even with having to adjust for playing an RPG instead of a minis wargame.

Chainmail also provides a different take on initiative by dint of having the different combat systems order action differently. The basic roll isn’t the end all be all of old school initiative, it turns out. The man-to-man system, for example, uses weapon speeds to figure out how many attacks a combatant can make based on a comparison of weapons between them and their foe. A small, quick weapon vs a large, much slower weapon can lead to multiple attacks that wouldn’t be possible using the fantasy combat system; fighting men and fighting monsters are qualitatively different in Chainmail.

A key concept I pull from this is that using procedures in play offers a lot of benefit at little cost. I don’t see scrapping the free-for-all for phased resolution to result in a loss of flavor in any significant way, while doing so gains a good deal of feel in play. It’s because of this that I’ve embraced the use of phases in my projects, although the specifics vary by which title.