Battlefields, Fog of War, and Army Scenes
Do not run the army. Run the pressure around the characters.
Large battles in Mar de Oro should be run as living pressure around the characters, not as full army simulations. The players do not need to move every battalion, battery, horse troop, and skirmish screen. They need to know where they are, what they can perceive, what is changing nearby, and what their actions can alter before the battle moves on.
The GM should treat battle as an environment with intent. Formations move, smoke thickens, orders fail, artillery reloads, cavalry waits for disorder, and ships above cloud change what cover means. The characters act inside that machine.
GM battlefield rule
Never ask the players to solve the whole battle unless the campaign is about command. Ask them to solve the part of the battle they can reach.
The three scales of battle
| Scale | What the GM tracks | Example at the table |
|---|---|---|
| Field scale | What the army or fleet is doing beyond the immediate scene. | The main line advances, an enemy battery shifts target, cavalry waits behind a ridge, a sky frigate descends through cloud. |
| Scene scale | The local place where the characters can change the outcome. | Bridge, breach, gun pit, signal mast, road bend, deck, courtyard, harbor gate, source chamber access. |
| Character scale | What the players can attempt now. | Run, crawl, command, shoot, repair, signal, rally, drag a wounded officer, read a flag, or decide an order is already wrong. |
Scene question
What changes if the characters do nothing before the next volley, order, signal, or engine beat?
Battlefield movement
When the fight is larger than a skirmish, use zones instead of exact distances. Zones let movement feel concrete without turning the session into a measured wargame. A zone is not a number of feet. It is a tactical condition: who can see you, who can shoot you, what slows you, and what changes if you get there too late.
| Zone | What it means | GM use |
|---|---|---|
| Safe rear | Command posts, reserves, surgeons, baggage, signal tents, launch boats, or repair stations. Safer, but never safe from airships or deep guns. | Start orders, reveal wounded, show consequences, introduce faction pressure. |
| Approach | Roads, fields, docks, beaches, alleys, slopes, jungle cuts, or ship passages leading toward danger. | Ask how characters move without drawing the wrong attention. |
| Fire zone | Ground covered by muskets, artillery, sharpshooters, ship guns, or airship fire. | Crossing requires timing, cover, smoke, courage, deception, or sacrifice. |
| Decision point | The bridge, breach, battery, signal tower, gate, deck, ridge, road bend, or engine room where the scene turns. | Success changes Cohesion, Pressure, or Position. Failure adds a complication. |
| Collapse zone | Broken formations, panicked horses, burning wagons, falling rigging, rupturing machinery, fleeing civilians, or crashed lift gear. | Make order itself the danger. Movement is possible, but consequences spill in every direction. |
Army fighting without moving armies
Resolve the larger battle through tracks, clocks, and consequences. Player actions should change what the battle can do next. Killing random enemies may matter, but breaking a formation, silencing a gun, saving a signal officer, or identifying the real order often matters more.
| Track | What it measures | Player actions that change it |
|---|---|---|
| Cohesion | Whether a formation can receive orders, hold shape, and act as a unit. | Rally soldiers, recover colors, replace an officer, restore signals, stop panic. |
| Pressure | How much fire, fear, confusion, and danger is building against a side. | Silence a gun, create smoke, destroy a relay, remove cavalry threat, expose ambush. |
| Position | Who controls useful ground, angle, altitude, road, breach, deck, bridge, harbor mouth, or signal point. | Seize the tower, hold the gate, move through dead ground, force the enemy to turn. |
Battlefield truth
Battles are won when the enemy stops acting as an organized body. Make the players care about command, morale, and position, not only casualties.
Fog of war behind the screen
Fog of war is not the GM hiding the game. It is the method by which information reaches people who are standing inside smoke, noise, fear, weather, bad maps, signal delays, and competing lies. Use it to create urgent choices, not to make players feel cheated.
| Level | What the GM knows | How to present it |
|---|---|---|
| Visible | What the characters can directly see, hear, smell, touch, or count. | The battery fired. You see smoke and the crew running the gun back into position. |
| Inferred | What the characters can reasonably guess from signs. | The drums are steady behind the smoke. The line has probably not broken. |
| Reported | What a runner, scout, signal, prisoner, officer, civilian, or sailor claims. | The left has collapsed, or so the runner says. He is bleeding and may be wrong. |
| False | What someone misread, forged, believes, fears, or wants the characters to believe. | The flag is genuine, but the order attached to it is not. |
| Hidden | What is truly happening outside their view. | Cavalry is behind the ridge. The airship above cloud has already identified the road. |
Fog-of-war rule
Always separate what the characters know from what they suspect. Give clues, costs, and ways to confirm. Do not turn uncertainty into a trick.
The battlefield beat
| Step | GM move |
|---|---|
| 1. Show the field | Give one visible fact: smoke, flags, gun flash, falling rigging, cavalry dust, airship shadow, or broken formation. |
| 2. Show the immediate danger | Name what will happen next if no one acts: the battery fires again, the flank opens, the road is cut, the signal fails. |
| 3. Ask for action | Let characters move, command, sneak, fire, repair, signal, rally, retreat, or investigate. |
| 4. Resolve in the chosen system | Use the rules at the table, but let the result change a track or clock. |
| 5. Change the battle | Success improves Cohesion, Pressure, or Position. Failure worsens one or creates a visible complication. |
Worked battlefield frames
Use these frames when a battle needs motion immediately. Each one is a scene seed, not a script. Choose the visible danger, the hidden pressure, and the track that player action can change.
| Frame | Visible danger | Hidden pressure | Track to change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Crossing a fire zone | A road or field is covered by artillery, muskets, or ship guns. | The gun crew has one more shot before friendly troops are trapped. | Pressure / Position |
| Orders through smoke | A written or shouted command must reach a unit whose officers cannot see the field. | The order was sensible ten minutes ago. It may now be fatal. | Cohesion / Command |
| Rally the wavering line | A friendly formation is still standing, but its center is opening. | Cavalry is waiting for the gap, and the enemy battery has noticed. | Cohesion |
| Silence the field gun | A battery controls the only useful approach. | The escort infantry is hidden in smoke, not absent. | Pressure |
| Airship above cloud | Engines are heard before the ship is seen. Signals fail or contradict. | The ship may be friendly, damaged, hunting, or already firing from altitude. | Airship / Fog |
| Collapse at the gate | Wagons, horses, civilians, wounded troops, and guards block the exit. | An official order says hold the gate. Survival says open it. | Position / Civilian |
GM ending move
End every army scene by showing how the wider battle reacts. A rescued officer changes orders. A silenced gun opens a road. A failed signal lets a faction act on old instructions.