Book of War on the DM's Handbook Podcast

Friend of the blog, Michael "chgowiz" Shorten has a regular podcast called "Dungeon Master's Handbook". In his most recent episode he shares a really nice overview of the history of trying to incorporate mass-warfare rules into D&D games: including Chainmail, Swords & Spells, Battlesystem, War Machine, and so forth.

Just like me, he spent years struggling with them and finding all of them deficient in some way to what we really wanted (the primary weakness to TSR offerings being: rules that are simply out-of-sync with D&D mechanics and results, and likely too abstract and complex to boot). He uses the name "Holy Grail" for the problem of finding a system which is: (1) mechanically compatible with D&D, (2) easy to interface D&D monsters and characters into mass battle, (3) simple enough to easily introduce to RPG'ers who are not expert wargamers, and (4) fun to play.

And he concludes by calling our product, Original Edition Delta: Book of War (see sidebar) the best solution to that problem, using such complimentary words as, "an amazing solution", "worked wonderfully", and "it's all there". Of course, it's exactly these same motivations that had me tinkering for a couple decades or so to find the right, streamlined system -- so I couldn't be more honored to know that it works as a solution to other thoughtful gamers out there.

Chgowiz has consistently given great feedback on the game by email and blog comments here, too. He authored the supplement called "The Fellowship" which allows lower-level PCs to function on the battlefield as joint party-based figure -- he talks about his experiences with that in the podcast, and we wrote about it earlier here. All of his output is highly recommended. If you're not aware of the legacy of mass-combat rules orbiting around D&D, this is a great place to start!

Dungeon Master's Handbook: Including Mass Combat Into D&D Campaign Games