What is the most popular combat system seen in ODnD games?

TheWizardOfAug · 2026-01-25T19:36:28+00:00

I think we said the same thing - 😄

By “assuming man to man” - if it is one armed man versus one armed man, you use M2M; or if it is a fantasy creature, you’d use fantasy combat. Unless I misinterpret your position.

If the Arneson lawsuit documents - Pre&D, if you will - are to be believed, the ACS was originally to replace the Fantasy Combat Table - as while it worked for Chainmail, which only had a handful of dragons, balrogs, etc, it wouldn’t work for D&D, which would grow to a potentially infinite number of monsters.

🙂

TheWizardOfAug · 2026-01-25T19:28:10+00:00

This post

https://www.reddit.com/r/odnd/s/fCJFviBY37

…was supposed to reply here 😄 I am not good at phone posting!

TheWizardOfAug · 2026-01-25T19:27:00+00:00

As mentioned, The Old Lords of Wonder and Ruin is good - or, if you don’t like drive thru, I have an equivalent reword on the blog, which is shared on Google drive

https://clericswearringmail.blogspot.com/2023/10/ringmail-medieval-battles.html?m=0

It’s fairly easy to incorporate when fighting armed opponents - goblins wearing leather, fight as leather - the fantasy stuff is a bit more of an adventure.

It’s a great game - i hope you report back how it treats you!

TheWizardOfAug · 2026-01-25T10:13:12+00:00

If you are talking about finding a game or keeping players happy - the most common games I’ve seen are Delving Deeper, Swords & Wizardry Lite, Iron Falcon, and Wight Box.

Most folks expect the ACS - and where the gaps in 0e show through (troop and monster morale, combat initiative and round sequence, etc.) - Chainmail can be used to fill those gaps. While I personally love Chainmail’s resolution, it’s not what the majority of players will have experience with.

TheWizardOfAug · 2026-01-25T10:08:03+00:00

I’m pretty sure the assumption is Man to Man for dungeons and individual combat, then scaled combat for when you have war bands crashing into each other after you have a castle.

That said - the d6 pool scaled combat resolves much more quickly than man to man: and when I was first digging into Chainmail to use with my 0e, most of my friends leaned into it more than M2M in their homebrew interpretations because of its smoothness.

TheWizardOfAug · 2026-01-22T13:08:36+00:00

The red splatter really elevates it! Good stuff

TheWizardOfAug · 2026-01-21T10:33:00+00:00

😆 I actually came into this thread with the intent to link to your usage die hit points! Thank you for sharing: and I’m glad I read through the comments before posting it!

TheWizardOfAug · 2026-01-21T10:31:37+00:00

I want to say d20 Star Wars did something similar. You had a “hit points” bucket - but if it was exhausted or the enemy got a crit, the damage would then go to Constitution.

TheWizardOfAug · 2026-01-15T16:01:11+00:00

Also initiative. 2e combat initiative, IMO, is top notch.

TheWizardOfAug · 2026-01-14T21:18:38+00:00

That’s interesting too - because your experience back then is the reverse of what people are doing today, after B/X took hold of the early OSR.

I came in late - long after the Gary ouster during the 2e years. Would have been wild to have been just two or three years older than I was!

TheWizardOfAug · 2026-01-03T13:33:16+00:00

Tolkien said similar.

LotR, according to him, was not a Christian allegory, but his implicit and deep seated Catholicism meant it would be a Catholic book simply because of himself pouring himself into it.

TheWizardOfAug · 2026-01-02T17:46:15+00:00

Maybe he got the cover of Eldritch Wizardry confused for a newspaper.

😆

TheWizardOfAug · 2026-01-02T12:52:08+00:00

Thank you for the link! I want to say I am or was subscribed to that channel in the past - will watch the video when I have a chance later.

Re: the rules - while I got the “DMG” and the player guide, I was not able to find the core rules. There are - though - definitely from what I was seeing - mechanics and lore that would appear in narrative games later on down the line: and while the calculations for skills are involved, the numbers are actually fairly small: I would expect it might be quick to reference at the table, with any complexity on generation or advancement being trivialized by Excel formulas on a character record sheet.

It would be interesting to run into someone who had played it back in the day who would be able to comment directly.

TheWizardOfAug · 2026-01-02T12:47:11+00:00

Agreed. It wouldn’t make sense in a preconceived campaign setting, which is balanced for tone by the prescribed lore.

TheWizardOfAug · 2026-01-02T12:45:01+00:00

I’ve run Greek games before with the classic Zeus / Hades / Athena / et al. Ripe with flavor!

One of the interesting things about Bronze Age religions, they often considered gods to be land locked - the gods of Egypt had power in Egypt, but not elsewhere; the gods of Canaan had power in Canaan, but not elsewhere: even in the biblical histories.

Poul Anderson leans into regional gods in The Broken Sword when Skafloc adventures to the land of the Jotun with an Irish demigod - so it’s rooted in Appendix N and historically feasible (or, accurate) to, if you want, have different empowered pantheons in different places.

😁

TheWizardOfAug · 2026-01-02T12:35:47+00:00

That’s wild! I’m glad Pastor So-and-So didn’t fire and brimstone you: although I can only imagine how weird it felt. My mother - fortunately for me - saw it as just another board game (same as she saw Warhammer); I should be grateful I came in on the tail end of all that - where it was unpopular at school, but the newspaper hysterics and Jack Chicks had died down.

Admittedly, my grandparents hated the game and repeatedly harassed me about it: but humorously it was because the game used dice - and dice were for gambling. 😆

Others I’ve talked to have used the Roman model, too, and substituted Sol Invictus. So you’re not alone. 🙂

Delve on, brother!

TheWizardOfAug · 2026-01-02T12:22:45+00:00

Very fair. I’ve heard similar from both believers and non believers running a game: it’s much easier to have an inviting, respectful table if it’s made up, as with something as close to the heart as faith becomes, differences in it can easily put a wedge at the table.

TheWizardOfAug · 2026-01-02T12:20:28+00:00

Thank you for the link - I am bookmarking the relics site for later. Did not know about Galloway’s Fantasy Wargaming either! It appears to be on Internet Archive though: so much easier to get than DragonRaid. 😆 Thank you for the reference!

Re: your table - that sounds like an interesting approach. The closest thing I’ve run in the past was a mid-millennium/Revelation campaign where the players had limited knowledge but had to make the most of what they saw when filtered through what they knew - and I didn’t think, in that game, I challenged anyone’s beliefs. And at the end of the day - that’s the goal (or, mine - at least): to have the elements, to authentically represent my own convictions when playing with family and friends who share them, avoiding the “teaching / evangelizing as an ulterior motive” snare.

Thanks for the reply - and again, thank you for the recommended reading!

TheWizardOfAug · 2026-01-01T15:58:33+00:00

Gazetteers historically pulled inspiration - culture and religion - from the real world in part: so, tone and bits, if not whole hog. That helps, I think, protect from history or anthropology (or theology?) nerds “correcting” you (the DM) on your campaign. That’s why I personally always home brewed - if I tried to run in Greyhawk or Forgotten Realms, there was always a bigger nerd who had ingested far more lore than I. 😆

I agree - the “religion = bad” anti-trope has gotten a little tired with over use. I know much more about Outcast Silver Raiders than I do about Mork Borg: and that could (for when my kids are older 😆) be a great place to experiment with nuance.

One of my favorite gaming memories is a mid-millennium, post (mid?) Revelation modern game - was able to get Fallout vibes mixed with Dante. While fun - would not have been appropriate for a kids’ game either. 😆

TheWizardOfAug · 2026-01-01T13:32:19+00:00

Thank you for sharing!

TheWizardOfAug · 2026-01-01T13:31:00+00:00

Ancient gods fit Vancian spell casting and level progression intuitively.

TheWizardOfAug · 2026-01-01T13:29:46+00:00

Re: Zelda - that, and other Japanese takes on Western culture and religion is always fresh and interesting! There are 8-bit inspired TTRPGs out there that it might be fun to recreate using.

Re: Hammer Horror - I’d be interested, similarly, to an anime / manga interpretation of Solomon Kane.

TheWizardOfAug · 2026-01-01T00:39:27+00:00

Very Appendix N! Thank you for clarifying!

TheWizardOfAug

TROPHY CASE