Talking with active military personnel and veterans, something that I constantly hear is how much unit morale can effect the battlefield performance of combat troops. Many games regularly wander into the realm of military operations, whether it is a collection of adventurers or cybernetic special forces. Very few games actually attempt to model the effects of morale though. I suspect many people avoid it because “loosing your shit” in battle isn’t really fun, and there is that feeling of screwing your team’s morale. In a good military game, the drama comes not from the action of the combat, but how the characters respond to, and deal with the trauma of combat.
Little things make a difference to soldiers: fresh food, a phone call home, etc. Big things make a difference too, and all of those things should be reflected to create a mechanical reward for trying to effect unit morale, and to remind players the cost of actions that hinder the group. What I propose is a system that does just this.
The original idea comes from running Heavy Gear, which is a die pool system, but I think it could easily be adapted to all sorts of systems. In Heavy Gear, Psyche represents a character’s outlook on life and their general attitude. A low Psyche represents someone that is generally negative, while a positive Psyche represents someone with a positive outlook on life. At the start of the game, players put a number of dice into the Morale Pool equal to their Psyche. So, players with a positive Psyche add dice to the Morale Pool, players with a zero Psyche at none, and a player with a negative Psyche removes dice from the Morale Pool.
During play, things that improves morale, such as trading your favorite MRE with your buddy, carrying your buddy’s pack, drawing sniper fire for your teammates, playing with local kids during downtime, R&R, and similar activities add a die to the Morale Pool. If a player does something selfish that counters unit morale, the GM removes dice from the pool. Things which negatively effect morale include refusing a direct order, hording a sought after item (i.e. food, cigarettes, etc.), stealing, cowardice, and similar actions subtract a die from the Morale Pool.
Throughout the game, players may draw from the Morale Pool to improve rolls. With Heavy Gear as an example, a player might need to make sure he hits that enemy, so the player can take any number of dice from the Morale Pool to improve their roll. This mechanic could easily be adjusted for other systems. In D&D, for example, the players would put a number of colored beads into the Morale Pool equal to their Charisma modifier. Each point spent from the Morale pool could provide a +2 bonus to the next roll. Obviously, this system could be subtlety modified to reflect the mechanics of the system.
Tags: Game Design, Role-Playing Games