Leeroy Jenkins behaviour in tabletop games.
- BattleTech.
- The most reckless faction in the setting was Clan Ice Hellion, their primary tactics is strike fast and hard with medium and light mechs. They decided invade the Inner Sphere to reach Terra, by fighting their way in the well garrisoned Clan Jade Falcons occupation zone. The Falcons along with the Hell's Horses retaliated against the invading clan, and only a handful of Clan Ice Hellion survived.
- On an individual level, Clanners are often this, with their 'attack first and ask questions afterwards' mentality getting a lot of them baited into traps when facing off against Inner Sphere foes who were much more willing to fight dirty. For example, the battle of Tukayyid saw the most overzealous of the Clans, Clan Smoke Jaguar, forced to withdraw from battle after their forces were severely mauled (32% fatalities, 78% material losses) after a mere three days because they simply kept falling for Comstar ambushes, too proud and too stubborn to fall back even when fatally outnumbered.
- Dungeons & Dragons:
- In 1st Edition, the Cavalier class in the Unearthed Arcana supplement is required to charge recklessly into battle, even if doing so interferes with or harms his allies.
- An example combat scenario from the 2nd Edition Dungeon Master's Guide:Harry (playing Rath, a dwarf who hates orcs): "Orcs?—CHARGE!"
Anne (playing Delsenora the Mage): "Uh, what!? Wait. Don't do that ... I was going to ... now I can't use a fireball spell." - The 3.5 character class Knight is encouraged to act this way. Knights cannot make surprise attacks and gain bonuses for shouting challenges at foes, so the most effective tactic is to charge into a room and bellow out a challenge. However, unlike the 1st Edition Cavalier, the Knight isn't penalized if he chooses to wait for a tactically intelligent time to do so. Such as right after his allies has sprung a surprise attack. The class is built to allow you to avoid being Lawful Stupid, an Idiot Hero, or Honor Before Reason to the point of being unable to function if you don't want to play that way.
- In 4th Edition, there's actually an item that acts as a Leeroy: the Invulnerable Coat of Arnd, which goads its wearer into pulling increasingly bold and stupid stunts in the middle of battle and rewards him or her for doing so. The Coat goes back as far as First Edition, although artifacts in 1E didn't get fully detailed descriptions.
- 4e also brings us the "Essentials": retools of various classes that take out various complexities and typically boil down to "Pick a stance/state, start making melee basic attacks". This was done in the interest of making "simple" characters for either new/casual players to pick up, or longtime vets who didn't feel like picking from a large array of powers every turn. What they didn't count on was the fact that the "Scout" Rangers, "Slayer" Fighters, "Hexblade" Warlocks and "Berserker" Barbarians all had either stances or abilities which greatly enhanced charge attacks; couple that with a gross number of magical weapons and armor pieces that give bonuses to charge or basic melee attacks, and suddenly a Leeroy Jenkins maneuver is the best strategy available.
- Subverted by war gods like Greyhawk's Hieroneous and Forgotten Realms's Tempus, who explicitly discourage this. While glorious charges are certainly admirable when the situation calls for them, knights and soldiers are encouraged to fight strategically. Ambushes, pincer movements, guerilla tactics and other actions are all perfectly acceptable if they get the job done more effectively.
- Planescape:
- In this campaign, one of the major Factions, the Transcendent Order (or the Ciphers) has a requirement for being a member: you must always act on your first impulse. For a Player Character who joins, this gives the Player a rather unique penalty: once he has decided on an action, he is not allowed to change his mind. (In other words, this is where a "no takebacks" rule is mandatory for a player). This does not mean the Player will always become a Leeroy Jenkins, but it might increase the risk or it happening.
- As opposed to the well-disciplined war mongers that make up the infernal armies of Hell, their chaotic counterparts the demons are like this, having no other plans but "scream and charge".
- The GURPS team seems to love Leeroying, inasmuch as there are so many Disadvantages that can produce it:
- Berserk: You must roll to avoid Leeroying any time you take 3 or more hits in one turn, or under "Other conditions of extreme stress (GM's option)" — i.e. pretty much in any combat.
- Bloodlust: You must roll to avoid Leeroying any time you have a chance to kill a "legitimate enemy" — i.e. pretty much in any combat.
- Impulsiveness: You must roll to avoid Leeroying any time the rest of the party are taking too long discussing something — i.e. pretty much before any combat.
- On the Edge: You must roll to avoid Leeroying any time you have a chance to deliberately put yourself in mortal danger — i.e. pretty much before or during (and possibly after) any combat.
- Overconfidence: You must roll to avoid Leeroying any time you feel yourself a match, or more than a match, for your opponent — i.e. pretty much in any combat.
- One survival suggestion in Paranoia is to trick everyone else into playing the Leeroy.
- in Unicornus Knights, Princess Cornelia will attempt to head straight for the capital, and will not avoid a fight, even one she will clearly lose. The players' job is to get her there and defeat the Emperor instead of getting herself killed. Averted if you play using Cornelia's strategist personality card, in which case she is able to move tactically.
- Wargames Research Group:
- The Impetuosity rule on historical wargames DBM and DBMM.
- The 6th edition army lists describe the Feudal Japanese: It is difficult to imagine how else this army could be used except an immediate impetuous charge, but usually that is enough.
- Warhammer:
- At the end of a round of close combat, if one unit loses and flees, the victorious unit can choose to chase after them in an effort to run down their foe. This can potentially lead to a unit leaving a perfect battleline, making it easy for their enemy to gang up on and destroy them, then exploit the resulting gap.
- Frenzy is a universal special rule found in some of the game's most vicious melee units, which compels them to charge the first enemy that comes close and try to overrun them in close combat, though it can be lost if the Frenzied unit is ever beaten in combat. It can also be exploited by a canny opponent, by using expendable troops to bait the Frenzied units into disrupting the rest of their army's advance, running in front of the enemy's guns, or charging into map hazards like quicksand or cliffs.
- Some units, like Bretonnian Knights Errant, have special rules that act like a lesser form of Frenzy, compelling them to charge the nearest enemy they can reach.
- The Orc and Goblin army has the Animosity rule, which means just about every unit might decide to ignore their general's orders and squabble amongst themselves, attack an allied unit making funny faces at them, or break formation in a headlong charge towards the enemy with a mighty "WAAAGH!!!"
- Warhammer 40,000:
- "Rage," like the aforementioned Frenzy, is a universal special rule that forces units with it to move at full speed toward the nearest enemy and attempt to assault it in close combat.
- Followers of Khorne are infamous for hurtling towards the enemy, heedless of any battle plan or even their own safety, while screaming "Blood for the Blood God! Skulls for the Skull Throne!" Though Khornate units are very nasty in close combat, this predictability and recklessness can get them killed, but as the saying goes, Khorne cares not from where the blood flows, only that it flows...
- The Black Crusade supplement The Tome of Excess features explicit rules on how to obtain Khorne's favour by doing this very thing. Given the exact description in the supplement, and that the supplement was written several years after the Trope Namer, it seems likely to be directly inspired.
- Among the Chaos Space Marines, the World Eaters, Khorne devotees themselves, are infamous for this. During the Horus Heresy, the Archtraitor was trying to bombard a force of loyalists from orbit, only to learn that Angron had taken his legion and made an unauthorized Drop Pod assault. Horus was so incensed that he nearly continued to bombardment anyway, but he knew he'd need the World Eaters to besiege the Imperial Palace on Terra, and so sent additional forces down to support them instead.
- The Blood Angels and their successors also fall victim to this, despite being loyalist Space Marine chapters. They're afflicted by a condition called the Red Thirst, which can cause even the most disciplined of Devastator units to ignore orders, abandon their positions and try to bludgeon the enemy to death with their heavy weapons. In extreme cases this will intensify into something called the Black Rage, in which the Astartes forgets his own identity and is lost to the Genetic Memory of his Primarch's death. Such unfortunates are grouped into the Death Company, equipped with close combat weapons, and unleashed upon the enemy - any who survive this battle are granted the Emperor's Peace afterward.
- The Flesh Tearers are a particularly tragic successor of the Blood Angels, where they're gripped by the Red Thirst and Black Rage harder than their progenitors. This has the unfortunate side effect of them succumbing to the rage faster than they can recruit new marines; even with their aggressive recruitment tactics it's suspected that Gabriel Seth, the current Chapter Master of the Flesh Tearers, will be their last. Because of this, most imperial forces hesitate to ask for their help, as whether intentional or not the Flesh Tearers can't really abide by any battle tactic other than "charge forward and bash faces". Seth himself has embraced this, reasoning that if they are to die out, they can at least take the Imperium's enemies with them.
- The Space Wolves' newest recruits are prone to this, as these Blood Claws are out to make a name for themselves and get so excited about charging into the enemy that they might forget to shoot their pistols beforehand. The ones who grow out of it are promoted to more tactically-flexible Grey Hunters, while the ones who don't are given armored motorbikes or jump packs so they'll be more effective at it.
- The Orks have strong Leeroy tendencies because the race is so aggressive and naturally fractious that even if the Warboss has a plan in mind, there's no guarantee all the mobs under his command will follow it. This makes Kommandoz (sneaky orks adept at camouflage) terrifyingly effective because no one wants to believe they exist (not that Kommandoz are completely exempt from the racial affinity for running and yelling at the enemy, they just manage to hold it in long enough to sneak past fortified lines).
- Ciaphas Cain (HERO OF THE IMPERIUM!!) remarks in Duty Calls that the closest thing to actual tactics that you can get Battle Sisters to follow is to point at the enemy, yell "Heretic!", and get the heck out of the way. He also believes this of the 597th's Lieutenant Jenit Sulla, who has a tendency towards reckless tactics. Played with here, however: they work nearly every time, and Amberley Vail notes that while Sulla's units tend to take slightly higher casualties than average, they also have vastly higher morale.
- Werewolf: The Apocalypse has several "battle howls" a character could use. One of them, a signal that one was going to try something particularly daring, desperate, or deranged, was interpreted by younger werewolves as, roughly, "Hey, watch this!" and by older werewolves as "Back off, I'm gonna try something stupid!" On the bright side, if they pulled it off, they would often get a lot of Glory points.
