Hierarchical scale in RPGs (and wargames!)

[Hobgoblin]

I just put a few lunchtime thoughts into a blog on hierarchical scale (important people are big, lesser mortals are small) in gaming. As I've been messing around with 1:72 stuff for 28mm lately, I've been wondering whether mixing scales in the way that ancient Egyptian or medieval art does might actually work quite well. I'm thinking here of 1:72 crowds of townsfolk, etc., in RPGs, with the PCs, monsters and important NPCs in 28mm.

It'd be a weird aesthetic choice, perhaps, but I think it might actually work. And of course it'd be much quicker and cheaper to amass and paint up crowds of civilians in 1:72 than in 28mm.

Does anyone know of anyone who's actually tried this? If so, how did it work?

[JollyBob]

That's essentially my approach to my OGAM warbands.

Gods are usually 40mm+, Heroes/Legends 32mm and Mortals in 28mm.

This is also helped with different sized bases. I think it looks good and you can tell at a glance who is the big cheese and who is a lowly pleb. My six-year-old has the same idea when he is playing sojers, the biggest one is obviously the king...

For an RPG, I think it would be a useful storytelling shorthand - I guess it depends on how much you want to represent on the tabletop for what I would normally assume is a pen, paper and imagination exercise...

[fred]

An interesting idea. I'm not sure what I think of it, my instinct is no that wouldn't work. But I have been quite happy using 6mm terrain wth 10mm figures for mass battles.

The only place I have seen this is in some battle reports, I think for the Art de la Guerre (ADLG, perhaps spelled slightly differently..) where the generals are often represented by 28mm figures while the rest of the troops are 15mm. And the reason for this is exactly what you are proposing, that the generals are important so should be bigger.

As for crowd scenes in RPGs - I suppose the question is, is it worth the effort? Its a long time since I played RPGs, but when we did we only used the figures when we got to a tactical combat phase, the rest of the time it was just in our heads. I guess it comes down to how much physical world building do you want to do, to tell the story, rather than needing the figures on the table to make combat precise? It would certainly be cool to have all encounters (combat or otherwise) represented in miniature, but it sounds a huge amount of work.

[Hobgoblin]

That's essentially my approach to my OGAM warbands.

Gods are usually 40mm+, Heroes/Legends 32mm and Mortals in 28mm.

This is also helped with different sized bases. I think it looks good and you can tell at a glance who is the big cheese and who is a lowly pleb. My six-year-old has the same idea when he is playing sojers, the biggest one is obviously the king...

That's a nicely systematic approach. It  me that I could use some 15mm troops as OGAM mortals; I even have appropriately ranked sabot bases for both the close-order and loose-order troops. Hmm ... I might give that a shot over the weekend.

For an RPG, I think it would be a useful storytelling shorthand - I guess it depends on how much you want to represent on the tabletop for what I would normally assume is a pen, paper and imagination exercise...

Shorthand's exactly it! When I run RPGs for the kids and their friends, we usually do everything with miniatures and floorplans (generally hand-drawn). It makes it a lot easier with large groups in particular; the larger the group, the more it becomes essentially a skirmish wargame with additional options. So I wonder if the hierarchical scale might be a way of signalling "these are people, but they're not enemies - though they might be obstacles!".

We tend to do family games as 'theatre of the mind', though, and the games I run with my friends vary hugely according to what we're playing.

[Hobgoblin]

An interesting idea. I'm not sure what I think of it, my instinct is no that wouldn't work. But I have been quite happy using 6mm terrain wth 10mm figures for mass battles.

Yeah, I'm not quite convinced myself!

The only place I have seen this is in some battle reports, I think for the Art de la Guerre (ADLG, perhaps spelled slightly differently..) where the generals are often represented by 28mm figures while the rest of the troops are 15mm. And the reason for this is exactly what you are proposing, that the generals are important so should be bigger.

It's also kind of what Warhammer does (or did), but on the sly. There was an interesting interview with Rick Priestly somewhere, in which he pointed out that Warhammer units tacitly adopted a figure scale of 1:100 or whatever, but that individuals were just individuals. So one orc miniature was 100 orcs while another represented just one.

As for crowd scenes in RPGs - I suppose the question is, is it worth the effort? Its a long time since I played RPGs, but when we did we only used the figures when we got to a tactical combat phase, the rest of the time it was just in our heads. I guess it comes down to how much physical world building do you want to do, to tell the story, rather than needing the figures on the table to make combat precise? It would certainly be cool to have all encounters (combat or otherwise) represented in miniature, but it sounds a huge amount of work.

Yes, it's the effort that it all turns on. Realistically, I'm never going to paint up 50 or 100 28mm civilians. But recent experiments with 1/72 have suggested that I could probably rattle through a box of 1/72 Roman civilians or whatever very quickly. So they'd really just be an alternative to using counters or something in crowded scenes.

The advantages might be that they'd look (a bit) better than counters or tokens, and that their smaller footprint would add realism (you can't get a proper crowd with 28mm miniatures on normal bases).

[JollyBob]

It  me that I could use some 15mm troops as OGAM mortals; I even have appropriately ranked sabot bases for both the close-order and loose-order troops. Hmm ... I might give that a shot over the weekend.

Just wondering if you managed to have a crack at this and if so, how did it work for you? 

[Hobgoblin]

I didn't, alas - all my time was devoured by the construction of the children's Halloween costumes - a process with two more gruelling nights to run ...

I will try it out shortly, though. We haven't played OGAM for ages, but we loved it when we did (usually pitting a reptile cult with Godzilla as a god against orcs led by some demon or other). I could see my home-made purple worm making an appearance as Crom Cruach or something.

[JollyBob]

I could see my home-made purple worm making an appearance as Crom Cruach or something.

And the award for most disturbing quote of the day goes to... 

OK, cool. I'd be interested in seeing what you think of using the different scales for this, as it seemed really obvious and intuitive to me, which is generally a good indicator that it won't work at all. 

[Hobgoblin]

And the award for most disturbing quote of the day goes to... 

Ha! I assure you that it's not a prosthesis.

[Barking Monkey]

28mm vs. 20mm would be a jarring mismatch to me.  I think if I were to attempt something like this I'd be more likely to use normal miniatures for the 'important' figures (perhaps 32mm vs. 28mm for PCs vs threat level NPCs, or 28mm vs. 25mm) and paper-flat figures for the riff-raff civilians.