Post originally by The Old Geezer at 2004-04-21 08:02:21
Converted from Phorums BB System

Scottenkainen quotha:

"One of the genius strokes of D&D was in NOT making morale apply to Player Characters. "

Exactly, sir.

Something just occured to me about your group's experience with CHAINMAIL.

In CHAINMAIL, or any other miniatures wargame, the 'player character' is the command figure. If you are commanding only one unit, than your command figure is the corporal in charge. If you are commanding the army, or at least one wing, you may have a command figure. Some rules require command figures, CHAINMAIL and some others allow but do not require them.

The player characters are the command figures. All the other soldiers are NPCs. This is especially true in the 1 figure = 20 men scale.

And playing D&D, we DID use Morale rules. As you say, though - not for PCs. But our 0-level NPC soldiers, and the town militia, and the night watch, and stray bands of goblins, all took morale checks.

I wonder how CHAINMAIL would be received by your group if you tried it again, making it clear that they were the command figure? You could even make them "Heroes" in CHAINMAIL terms. (Notice that Heroes and Superheroes never need to make morale checks?)

The player characters do have ultimate control over their own actions. It's the 1800 NPCs out there that can be hard to control.

-- Old Geezer