Regular readers of this blog (I know there are a few of you) will know that I've been working towards a mini-campaign set during the 1812 French invasion of Russia. Rather than going with the well-known march to and retreat from Moscow, the plan is to cover Marshal Macdonald's advance towards Riga with a corps made up almost entirely of German and Polish troops.
Inspired by the approach used in Osprey's Rogue Stars sci-fi skirmish rules, I decided to have a go at a random scenario generator for the campaign. The following system doesn't try to establish every single detail of a scenario. Instead treat it as a source of ideas; you'll still need to nail down some of the details by agreement (if you don't have an umpire).
To generate a Sharp Practice scenario, start out by rolling a D20 to get an idea of the general terrain on the table:
If a village shares the table with terrain that precludes farming, eg forest or boggy ground, the village is (or was) inhabited by Jewish traders and artisans. They are used to being attacked so their caches of food are well hidden. Add 5 to the foraging Task Values.
Next we need to roll twice (once for each side) to see what orders our respective detachments have been given:
Finally roll once on the Complications Table to find those unpredictable items that make life even more, well, complicated!
These tables reflect the
Narrative Snippets I've captured while reading contemporary accounts of 1812 and other campaigns in Napoleonic Eastern Europe. I plan to treat this as a living document and add to or amend the plot elements as my reading continues.
There's no reason this approach can't be adapted for other campaigns in the Napoleonic era or at other times.
1 comment:
This is a great approach to adding flavour to SP2 games without too much trouble at all! Thanks for sharing.
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