Yes, more Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay...
When the system was presented before, it stated that the dice told a story. I was skeptical then but after a few test rolls, I can see what they might have meant.
The thing is, they give you a sample of how to interpret the dice rolls into the story that just don't work for me. It gives you a sample of dice and explains how you might narrate the attack whether it was a neutral, aggressive or conservative stance. The example is okay, but it was picking out every success, fail, boons, bane and other symbols of the dice to create a narrative.
While there is nothing wrong with that in theory, it would require the GM to easily look at the dice of each player, examining, processing and then constructive a quick narrative.
This seems like a lot of work, which is entirely unnecessary. The action cards themselves provide some interesting visuals that we can process. It seems no need to focus in on the dice themselves and point out every symbol that was rolled to create a narrative.
It doesn't matter to me, because I'm pretty damn good at coming up with my own narratives, to keep combat interesting and visual (hopefully).
But I was throwing some dice around and did see the potential for this: dice as a narrative mechanic.
I was toying around with a Fear roll. Test-Dwarf had a 3 Willpower, so I would roll 3 Dice. A standard Fear rating seems to be 2, so that's two challenge dice.
Now I ran into some interesting rolls. There was your standard pass/fail test rolls. But there were other results that started to, gosh darn it, narrate the scene for me (or us as the players). If you fail your Fear test, you take Stress point. If you get 2 Banes you get the Frightened Status.
On one roll, where the Test-Dwarf was heavy in an Aggressive Stance, he managed to roll enough Successes (so no Stress) BUT rolled both a Recharge icon and enough Banes to gain the Frightened Status. So from this roll, we know that the Test-Dwarf refuses to let his mind run rampant with fear (the no Stress part) BUT we know that some part of the Test-Dwarf is afraid of it, as his hand trembles (the Frightened status). The Recharge icon means he's hesitating so instead of Stress, an important maneuver may have slipped his mind.
One another roll, I ended up Succeeding in the roll but got the Recharge token and getting a Chaos Star. in this particular scenario, I was using the Location card as it dictated that on a Chaos Star, the character trips on something and takes a wound. This says to me that the Test-Dwarf was startled, backed up, tripped on something, hurting his ankle AND his pride. He stands back up and feels embarrassed at his momentary foolishness which represents the Recharge token.
So it was very neat to see how the dice actually could start helping out the story.
Whether this process stands the test of time, we'll see. It didn't take long in my D&D 4th edition test games for the players to resort to: "I attack" instead of announced with pride their uber-cool power (note this is after using the same At-Will power several times in a row). No doubt there will be times when the GM's narration tank is running dry and dice and action cards won't help.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Friday, December 18, 2009
Why we roll
In my obsesion with Warhammer, I've figured out a prime example of why the system is (so far) proving itself to be superior to other more basic systems (what I call the pass/fail system).
In games, we roll dice. We roll dice when the outcome is not always certain. A little secret is: every so often, that roll is worthless. What I mean by that is that the outcome is already certain. But the GM either wants to give the illusion of chance (that you could have succeed or failed) or has some other motive behind the roll.
Now *I* do not try to do this on purpose. But a lot of GM's do it. As a good example: Investigation rolls. A lot of games (as I've previously stated) are Mysteries in their own right. The point is to try to collect info and solve it. The GM can't just 'give' the players all the clues when they walk into a locale so they make them roll for it.
But the problem here is, secretly, the GM wants/needs the info to get to the players. The players need that info or they stall out and have no clue where to go next.
A fair GM makes them roll and if they succeed, they get all the right info and if they fail, they get nothing. A bad GM makes them roll and success or fail, the players get all the right info. A good GM might give them the info (success or fail) but will find some sort of negative result to go along with a failure. You find the results, but you get some sort of negative, such as it takes you hours to figure it out, you cut your hand by finding some evidence or whatever (okay these negatives suck but the point remains).
Warhammer presents an interesting level for the difficulty of the dice. You can make it tougher by adding Challenge dice (which increases the odds of failure) OR you can increase the odds of getting Banes (which trigger negative side-effects) by adding Misfortune dice.
The point here being, since you need the information to get out to the player, instead of heaping Challenge dice on their investigation, instead you have the opportunity to add Misfortune dice. Here you are encouraging (via the system itself) the success of your characters (setting them up to succeed as it were) so that you can get your information out but you are also promoting more Banes so you can at the very least pretend that you're not just giving them the information.
Pretty sweet.
In games, we roll dice. We roll dice when the outcome is not always certain. A little secret is: every so often, that roll is worthless. What I mean by that is that the outcome is already certain. But the GM either wants to give the illusion of chance (that you could have succeed or failed) or has some other motive behind the roll.
Now *I* do not try to do this on purpose. But a lot of GM's do it. As a good example: Investigation rolls. A lot of games (as I've previously stated) are Mysteries in their own right. The point is to try to collect info and solve it. The GM can't just 'give' the players all the clues when they walk into a locale so they make them roll for it.
But the problem here is, secretly, the GM wants/needs the info to get to the players. The players need that info or they stall out and have no clue where to go next.
A fair GM makes them roll and if they succeed, they get all the right info and if they fail, they get nothing. A bad GM makes them roll and success or fail, the players get all the right info. A good GM might give them the info (success or fail) but will find some sort of negative result to go along with a failure. You find the results, but you get some sort of negative, such as it takes you hours to figure it out, you cut your hand by finding some evidence or whatever (okay these negatives suck but the point remains).
Warhammer presents an interesting level for the difficulty of the dice. You can make it tougher by adding Challenge dice (which increases the odds of failure) OR you can increase the odds of getting Banes (which trigger negative side-effects) by adding Misfortune dice.
The point here being, since you need the information to get out to the player, instead of heaping Challenge dice on their investigation, instead you have the opportunity to add Misfortune dice. Here you are encouraging (via the system itself) the success of your characters (setting them up to succeed as it were) so that you can get your information out but you are also promoting more Banes so you can at the very least pretend that you're not just giving them the information.
Pretty sweet.
Monday, December 14, 2009
Larping 101
This isn’t quite a guide or a class on fundamentals. Just my thoughts about running a larp and the difference that makes one situation good or another great.
Running a larp is more art than science. I used to have debates over which is more important: the story or the characters. I used to come down that it was 50/50. Both were equally important. Now I believe I was wrong. The characters (players) are far, far more important than the story.
See, the story doesn’t have any meaning without the characters there to give it meaning. You can be the Shakespear of writing but if you can’t get any of your players onboard with your ideas, you’ve ultimately failed.
The point is that you have to sell your plots to the players. There are a number of ways to do that. Bottom line is, the more personal and immersive you make it for the player, the more they will buy into your plot. Once that happens, they will work to complete that plot, because everything really comes down to ‘solving’ the game.
The big secret is that most larps are, more or less, murder mysteries. The game starts with a mystery. The players work to solve it, by unravelling the clues and figuring out what is ‘actually going on’. Then it often ends with a big fight against a bad guy.
As such the players need to be compelled to ‘solve’ the mystery. If they don’t buy into it, then your plot either progresses unimpeded (which is kinda dumb if you think about it) or stalls out. If the later, then the GM often is forced to ram it down the player’s throats to get them to take notice of it.
So selling a plot is key. And the best way to sell it? Well, this IS a larp. Immersion is what larpers come for. Therefore running scenes for the characters is crucial. I’ve found that players don’t always respond well when you write stuff for them to read. Reading a turn is informative but it’s not immersive. Only a small number of players get a lot out of reading a turn. Most players get a LOT more out of running their character through a scene. In some cases, simply because it was a scene, the player immediately ‘buys in’. In other cases, the scene must be more compelling to the player/character for them to buy in.
Then we get to another little element which I’ve picked up on after finishing Heavy Rain. It’s about the stages of Progression.
Players start everything blind. They’ve not lived in this world but are trying to pretend they have. They rely on the Storyguide for information to know how to make their first choices in this world. Baby steps if you will. Once they’ve taken their Baby steps they are often ready to find a plotline to dive into.
So they look for information that appeals to them. That’s Stage 1. There has to be something that interests the player (and I say player a lot because you are appealing to both the player and character at the same time). Heavy Rain was ‘easy’ because, with the backgrounds provided, I KNEW that some players would jump on particular monsters.
Example: Wayne’s background named Sethra as his nemesis. Thus when Sethra was listed as one of the main bad guys, I knew he and his group would focus on them. Steph and Lorne came into the game with missing children. Thus, when Father was potentially kidnapping children, it was not great surprise when they focused on him.
Stage 2 is a broad big stage. I call it the information stage (for lack of anything more snazzy). The information stage is where the player is collecting the information about the plotline that they are following. The information stage can take a long time, if the plot is big enough. The information stage is critical because too much information and the player solves your plot too quickly. But too little information, providing confusing information or conflicting information is dangerous.
And I’m going to have to go on a tangent here: I will maintain until I die, that a Storyguide does a grave injustice when they specifically put in false information and red herrings into a story. They do nothing but hurt the story entirely. I will go as far to say that any storyguide who does this is flat out wrong.
The reason why I’m so adamant about this is because of one simple truth: Players are legendary for misunderstanding, misinterpreting and generally fucking up the 100% truthful information that is presented. It’s rare that they intentionally do this, but rather it is the PurpleMonkeyDishwasher theory. Players will just screw up the information on their own, through little fault of their own. Thus, I’ve NEVER seen a reason as a Storyguide to ever give false information.
Instead, I’ve seen countless times where giving false information will destroy the fun for players. A player spends months of downtime looking into something, providing other players with lies and ultimately, they find out that what they were looking into was wrong and they feel that they’ve utterly wasted months of their time. I’ve also been in a Sunfall quest where I was paraded around for hours doing a red herring. To find out that I was duped by the game and actors was no small source of resentment on my part. I was hours behind solving anything in the game and as such, I had already ‘lost’.
Getting back to the point, and I’m not done with Stage 2 but I must then explain Stage 3: Progression.
Progression, I’ve come to realize, is critical. The players MUST feel that they’ve Progressed the plot. However, going back to the 101 lesson: I’ve realized that a lot of us storyguides easily confuse Stage 2 for Stage 3.
We get into a mistake that Stage 2: collecting information IS synonymous to Stage 3: Progression. But it is not.
Progression means that you’ve actually moved the plot forward. That the plot has shifted in some way to change it. But again, we storyguides fool ourselves into thinking that, by virtue of the fact that we’ve provided the player with information that the player feels a sense of satisfaction. Well the player does get the Stage 2 satisfaction. They’ve gotten the satisfaction that they went from Stage 1 to learning something more about the plot.
But make no mistake: Stage 3 is just as critical as Stage 2. Information is NOT progression. Progression means that the player has somehow influenced or changed the plot line in some fashion. They have done something to impact the game.
I’ve got some wonderful examples from Heavy Rain, my last larp. It was a hunters game that took place in a universal that I said ‘bordered both my own Kingdom Come world and that of the hit TV show Supernatural’.
In HR, I provided the players with a list of ‘assignments’. This list displayed the general monsters in the game.
A player could, in one month Investigate (Stage 2) and hunt down and kill (Stage 3) anything on the list. As they killed the monster it would be crossed of the list. That is a very basic example of Progression.
One of the monsters, a werewolf leader named Haight, had his own little storyline. Once some players focused on him, during Stage 2 they learned that if he wasn’t stopped by the November game, he would become extremely powerful. Stage 2 didn’t last particularly long but the players involved did some investigation to see how bad this ritual of Haight’s would be and then decided how best to deal with it. In addition to all this, there was some backstabbing because one of the characters in the game was loyal to Haight.
Finally came Stage 3 where they went and attacked Haight. The PC’s won the day due to their actions. It’s still very compressed but this was tackled over 2 months rather than all done in 1 month.
Now here’s an example of a failed situation. My Father plot was all about 4 characters. 2 of which were the parents of this evil creature (not by their choice mind you) and 2 were the people who had ruined this creature’s first host. Now my fault was that I was blind. I kept the entire group is Stage 2, but mistakenly thought that indeed, I was giving them some Progression, because I was giving them information. But I was most definitely mistaken.
But hindsight is 20/20. I only realized this after the final game. I had given them no actual progression. Only pieces of the puzzle. I fooled myself into thinking that they had the information to deal with this, to see the puzzle as it were. And they did, just barely, by the end of it all. And that makes the information I gave them some measure of progress, but it’s not the Progression that I speak of. They knew more about the Father plotline but they hadn’t moved the plot any closer to conclusion.
I ‘screwed’ my players out of Stage 3.
And I’m not saying that Stage 3 is solving the plot. Hell no. A big plot line should be a good blend of Stage 2 to 3, going back and forth as the players learn stuff, solve stuff, learn more stuff, solve more stuff. Until they are ready to finish the plot. If it’s the uberplot, then that typically happens at the last (or near to the last) game.
As an example, I set some of the monsters up with a group of guards. Their Presence of monsters. To attack the main boss directly at first was foolhardy. The players would have to attack the Presence first. Therefore, they spent some time in Stage 2 (learning that attacking without defeating the Presence was foolish), then they entered into Stage 3 (killed off the Presence) and then touched briefly back into Stage 2 (learn about the main boss’ lingering defences) and then plunged back into Stage 3 (kill the main boss).
Although it was all streamlined for a short whirlwind 5 month game, the idea is still sound. Killing off the Presence first, was a very obvious and clear display of Progression. The plot has moved forward. That particular boss monster was going to be a less tough fight than charging headlong into them.
Overall, one who played HR can see that there were technically lots of Stage 2-3 happening over and over again. The ultimate obvious goal of the game was to destroy all 5 main bad guys (and it turned out there were 3 ‘secret’ bad guys as well). Thus ‘winning’ HR was about killing those 5 main bad guys. Progression was happening as one by one they feel but the final Progression would only be completed once the 5th boss monster was dead (or in this case, she wasn’t’ killed but her Presence was utterly destroyed and she efficiently ran off).
So yeah, that’s it in a nut shell. Stage 1-3 of how to run a story and how easy it is to fool yourself into thinking that Stage 2 IS Stage 3.
Running a larp is more art than science. I used to have debates over which is more important: the story or the characters. I used to come down that it was 50/50. Both were equally important. Now I believe I was wrong. The characters (players) are far, far more important than the story.
See, the story doesn’t have any meaning without the characters there to give it meaning. You can be the Shakespear of writing but if you can’t get any of your players onboard with your ideas, you’ve ultimately failed.
The point is that you have to sell your plots to the players. There are a number of ways to do that. Bottom line is, the more personal and immersive you make it for the player, the more they will buy into your plot. Once that happens, they will work to complete that plot, because everything really comes down to ‘solving’ the game.
The big secret is that most larps are, more or less, murder mysteries. The game starts with a mystery. The players work to solve it, by unravelling the clues and figuring out what is ‘actually going on’. Then it often ends with a big fight against a bad guy.
As such the players need to be compelled to ‘solve’ the mystery. If they don’t buy into it, then your plot either progresses unimpeded (which is kinda dumb if you think about it) or stalls out. If the later, then the GM often is forced to ram it down the player’s throats to get them to take notice of it.
So selling a plot is key. And the best way to sell it? Well, this IS a larp. Immersion is what larpers come for. Therefore running scenes for the characters is crucial. I’ve found that players don’t always respond well when you write stuff for them to read. Reading a turn is informative but it’s not immersive. Only a small number of players get a lot out of reading a turn. Most players get a LOT more out of running their character through a scene. In some cases, simply because it was a scene, the player immediately ‘buys in’. In other cases, the scene must be more compelling to the player/character for them to buy in.
Then we get to another little element which I’ve picked up on after finishing Heavy Rain. It’s about the stages of Progression.
Players start everything blind. They’ve not lived in this world but are trying to pretend they have. They rely on the Storyguide for information to know how to make their first choices in this world. Baby steps if you will. Once they’ve taken their Baby steps they are often ready to find a plotline to dive into.
So they look for information that appeals to them. That’s Stage 1. There has to be something that interests the player (and I say player a lot because you are appealing to both the player and character at the same time). Heavy Rain was ‘easy’ because, with the backgrounds provided, I KNEW that some players would jump on particular monsters.
Example: Wayne’s background named Sethra as his nemesis. Thus when Sethra was listed as one of the main bad guys, I knew he and his group would focus on them. Steph and Lorne came into the game with missing children. Thus, when Father was potentially kidnapping children, it was not great surprise when they focused on him.
Stage 2 is a broad big stage. I call it the information stage (for lack of anything more snazzy). The information stage is where the player is collecting the information about the plotline that they are following. The information stage can take a long time, if the plot is big enough. The information stage is critical because too much information and the player solves your plot too quickly. But too little information, providing confusing information or conflicting information is dangerous.
And I’m going to have to go on a tangent here: I will maintain until I die, that a Storyguide does a grave injustice when they specifically put in false information and red herrings into a story. They do nothing but hurt the story entirely. I will go as far to say that any storyguide who does this is flat out wrong.
The reason why I’m so adamant about this is because of one simple truth: Players are legendary for misunderstanding, misinterpreting and generally fucking up the 100% truthful information that is presented. It’s rare that they intentionally do this, but rather it is the PurpleMonkeyDishwasher theory. Players will just screw up the information on their own, through little fault of their own. Thus, I’ve NEVER seen a reason as a Storyguide to ever give false information.
Instead, I’ve seen countless times where giving false information will destroy the fun for players. A player spends months of downtime looking into something, providing other players with lies and ultimately, they find out that what they were looking into was wrong and they feel that they’ve utterly wasted months of their time. I’ve also been in a Sunfall quest where I was paraded around for hours doing a red herring. To find out that I was duped by the game and actors was no small source of resentment on my part. I was hours behind solving anything in the game and as such, I had already ‘lost’.
Getting back to the point, and I’m not done with Stage 2 but I must then explain Stage 3: Progression.
Progression, I’ve come to realize, is critical. The players MUST feel that they’ve Progressed the plot. However, going back to the 101 lesson: I’ve realized that a lot of us storyguides easily confuse Stage 2 for Stage 3.
We get into a mistake that Stage 2: collecting information IS synonymous to Stage 3: Progression. But it is not.
Progression means that you’ve actually moved the plot forward. That the plot has shifted in some way to change it. But again, we storyguides fool ourselves into thinking that, by virtue of the fact that we’ve provided the player with information that the player feels a sense of satisfaction. Well the player does get the Stage 2 satisfaction. They’ve gotten the satisfaction that they went from Stage 1 to learning something more about the plot.
But make no mistake: Stage 3 is just as critical as Stage 2. Information is NOT progression. Progression means that the player has somehow influenced or changed the plot line in some fashion. They have done something to impact the game.
I’ve got some wonderful examples from Heavy Rain, my last larp. It was a hunters game that took place in a universal that I said ‘bordered both my own Kingdom Come world and that of the hit TV show Supernatural’.
In HR, I provided the players with a list of ‘assignments’. This list displayed the general monsters in the game.
A player could, in one month Investigate (Stage 2) and hunt down and kill (Stage 3) anything on the list. As they killed the monster it would be crossed of the list. That is a very basic example of Progression.
One of the monsters, a werewolf leader named Haight, had his own little storyline. Once some players focused on him, during Stage 2 they learned that if he wasn’t stopped by the November game, he would become extremely powerful. Stage 2 didn’t last particularly long but the players involved did some investigation to see how bad this ritual of Haight’s would be and then decided how best to deal with it. In addition to all this, there was some backstabbing because one of the characters in the game was loyal to Haight.
Finally came Stage 3 where they went and attacked Haight. The PC’s won the day due to their actions. It’s still very compressed but this was tackled over 2 months rather than all done in 1 month.
Now here’s an example of a failed situation. My Father plot was all about 4 characters. 2 of which were the parents of this evil creature (not by their choice mind you) and 2 were the people who had ruined this creature’s first host. Now my fault was that I was blind. I kept the entire group is Stage 2, but mistakenly thought that indeed, I was giving them some Progression, because I was giving them information. But I was most definitely mistaken.
But hindsight is 20/20. I only realized this after the final game. I had given them no actual progression. Only pieces of the puzzle. I fooled myself into thinking that they had the information to deal with this, to see the puzzle as it were. And they did, just barely, by the end of it all. And that makes the information I gave them some measure of progress, but it’s not the Progression that I speak of. They knew more about the Father plotline but they hadn’t moved the plot any closer to conclusion.
I ‘screwed’ my players out of Stage 3.
And I’m not saying that Stage 3 is solving the plot. Hell no. A big plot line should be a good blend of Stage 2 to 3, going back and forth as the players learn stuff, solve stuff, learn more stuff, solve more stuff. Until they are ready to finish the plot. If it’s the uberplot, then that typically happens at the last (or near to the last) game.
As an example, I set some of the monsters up with a group of guards. Their Presence of monsters. To attack the main boss directly at first was foolhardy. The players would have to attack the Presence first. Therefore, they spent some time in Stage 2 (learning that attacking without defeating the Presence was foolish), then they entered into Stage 3 (killed off the Presence) and then touched briefly back into Stage 2 (learn about the main boss’ lingering defences) and then plunged back into Stage 3 (kill the main boss).
Although it was all streamlined for a short whirlwind 5 month game, the idea is still sound. Killing off the Presence first, was a very obvious and clear display of Progression. The plot has moved forward. That particular boss monster was going to be a less tough fight than charging headlong into them.
Overall, one who played HR can see that there were technically lots of Stage 2-3 happening over and over again. The ultimate obvious goal of the game was to destroy all 5 main bad guys (and it turned out there were 3 ‘secret’ bad guys as well). Thus ‘winning’ HR was about killing those 5 main bad guys. Progression was happening as one by one they feel but the final Progression would only be completed once the 5th boss monster was dead (or in this case, she wasn’t’ killed but her Presence was utterly destroyed and she efficiently ran off).
So yeah, that’s it in a nut shell. Stage 1-3 of how to run a story and how easy it is to fool yourself into thinking that Stage 2 IS Stage 3.
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay
From a rules standpoint, I am well and truly enamoured with this game.
Anybody who knows me, knows that I like to do many things in an abstract fashion. I do not like the tactical game play of D&D as I find it very confining and limited. The reason why I find tactical play so confining is because when I picture combat, I picture a movie in my head. D&D will never, ever, following that fast-paced, flowing visual that I get.
The holy grail of combat scenes, to me, was presented in Lord of the Rings. The fight near the end with the Fellowship vs. the Urak-Hai. I’ve never seen a more compelling and intricate fight scene. Why do I love it so?
There were multiple scenes/settings, involving a clearing, ruins that were climbed & a heavy forest
There were multiple scenes, including the Fellowship fighting, Frodo and his crew’s dilemma, Borimir’s death and Aragorn’s one on one fight with Lurtz
Aragorn vs. Lurtz is a stunning example of a brutal, anything to win fight. Lurtz use his shield as a weapon (throwing it at Aragorn). Aragorn lost his sword and had to draw a knife to use. It was a well choreographed fight.
You cannot run that scene in D&D. Or if you do, it conjures images of cheeto eating, pop drinking nerds who run the combat through it’s numbers. Tactical combat is sterile. You can move X squares, you can perform X attacks, you are frozen in time when it’s not your initiative, etc.
I’m not saying that I’ve hated D&D combat over the years, but it’s sterile and has never quite achieved the lofty highs which I, as a storyguide, desire. I prefer a lot of narration when I run a game and allowing characters to go the extra mile. I want combat to ebb and flow.
When Warhammer 2nd edition came out, I was eager to re-live my youth. The world of Warhammer is dirty and corrupt. Generally my favourite type of fantasy world. 2nd edition was a faithful re-creation of the original but one thing that I was disappointed with was that their combat system was a clone of D&D 3rd edition. There were Move actions and if you took a Move action you couldn’t take all your attacks. So the only way to take all your attacks in a round is to root yourself in place (which promotes static combat). I ran the 2nd edition game for about 2 years and it was alright.
Enter 3rd edition. Everything has changed.
Whereas 2nd edition was a rules heavy game (like D&D), 3rd edition is…a rules lite game. It’s a bold direction for a game heaped in mountains of rules.
This is not so say that it’s as lite as something like Fate. It’s got it’s rules and they are well structured (once you decipher them from the confounding and poorly designed rule books). But they’ve created a core dice system which allows a GM to easily add bonuses or negatives on the fly.
The trick to doing this is subtle. What they did was create some core dice which provide the bulk of your chances of success. Then they added Fortune dice to add compliments and Challenge and Misfortune dice to add difficulty to an action.
Why this works so well is that each Fortune dice has a mild affect on your total role. Adding a Fortune dice here or there won’t break the bank. So a GM or a rule can feel free to add them without fearing that you’re tipping things too heavily in the player’s favour.
The same works with Challenge & Misfortune dice. Challenge dice are bad for the players. When rolled, they will eat up successes and can cause all sort of problems. Misfortune dice on the other hand, are far less ‘evil’ for a player. They are more likely to not destroy successes so much as ruin something called boons (which are beneficial side effects that most actions can have). The GM can really tailor any challenge by adding either Challenge dice and/or Misfortune dice.
As a great example, take poor, average and superior equipment. Poor equipment can be represented easily as being the ‘same as normal equipment’ but you role a Misfortune dice along with your pool. Superior equipment adds a Fortune dice to the challenges.
It’s a really simple and elegant concept that allows the GM to tailor the game to his desires. Say they like to encourage outrageous actions? Add Fortune dice to players who want to swing on chandeliers and rescue the maiden. Say instead, they want an unforgiving brutal world. Add Misfortune dice to characters after days of trudging through swamps who suddenly find themselves in combat.
Like a true rules lite system, they do not give the rules to govern EVERY situation. The GM is left to use their judgment in 90% of the situations. This is both great and bad. For example, there is no penalty to Stealth while wearing Full Plate Armour. This is not because it’s meant to be that way, but it’s because they didn’t want to bog down every rule with how it is affected by everything else. You the GM must decide what the penalty is. Common sense must rule. Of course, despite it’s name, not everybody has common sense.
The setup for the game, however, is borderline brutal. It is not a pick-up game. Actions are governed through Action cards and the number of Action cards are great. This is good as it adds a lot of variety but it’s bad in that each player must sift through a stack of cards and decipher what they think will be good and bad. Now add Talent cards (more passive effects) which come in multiple flavours (Reputation, Focus and Tactics). Building a character is not an easy task.
This game is a paradigm shift. It’s rules lite so a lot of what is going on, while governed by Action cards in combat, will have to be judged by the GM during the game. Something that can be good and bad. Even a good GM can have bad rules calls.
They encourage a ‘say-yes’ attitude which I’ve seen in other games but which is better done here. D&D 4th edition suggested a ‘say-yes’ attitude which is all well and good but if most things are governed by the rules already…what is there to ‘say-yes’ too? The DM’s guide did have a nice section of how to govern some out of the box things, such as knocking over a giant statue to crush a giant. But…the question was, why bother? You’re already a fantasy superhero in D&D. Your powers are awesome so there is little reason to bother with anything out side the box.
In Warhammer, you’ve got a core mechanic that can blend with virtually any situation but you’ve got a lack of a tome of rules to go with it. So the ‘say-yes’ attitude is easy. A player wants to do something very difficult? Throw Challenge dice at them and if they succeed, great. If they want to do something tricky, throw Misfortune dice at them.
I’ve not meant this to be an attack on D&D and I generally make it no secret that I dislike 4th edition. Warhammer has the style and attitude that I like. I think it’ll work out really well…for those of us willing to fight through the terribly organized rules.
Oh, so getting back to my Lord of the Rings fight.
How does Warhammer handle this sort of battle?
Well check this out:
Map: Instead of a map with squares you’ve got a location card. It gives you the 411 on the location and what sort of perils you might face. Not really required but it gives you more insight as to what additional effects might transpire during the battle.
To make things interesting, you could incorporate multiple location cards to set up a full battlefield. So you could have your clearing, your ruins, your deep forest, etc. To run the LotR fight you would still have to give reason for the players to move or stay at one location. In the movie, the heroes of the Fellowship attempted to meet the onslaught of orcs, only to find that they were horribly outnumbered and the orcs were focused on the prize, which was the hobbits. Thus you have the orcs pour past the heroes and move to other locations. Additionally, while the hobbits are located in the deep forest location, you have it so nobody, friend or foe, knows their exact location without a proper search. Thus charging into the forest itself to try to save the day may not actually amount to anything.
Movement: Instead of squares, you’ve got distance ranks which are abstract. No need to know if you are 100 feet or metres from your target. Engaged, Close, Medium, Long and Extreme are your distance ranks.
Manoeuvres: In order to change distance ranks, pull a weapon, hold excess spell power or do other minor things in combat, you must perform a Manoeuvre. You get one free Manoeuvre during your turn but if you want to take more, you can take a point of Fatigue. You can suffer a fair bit of Fatigue but if you suffer too much, you’ll drop unconscious.
Combat: From there the action proceeds as normal. Action cards spice up combat as a means to encourage something other than, “I attack”. Once fighting beginnings, there is only a small amount of Manoeuvres that will be done. I haven’t gone through all of them, but ‘maneuvering’ your enemy isn’t a common effect. As such there is little reason to ‘give ground’ as Aragorn is forced to do, which forces him to climb the ruins in one scene, to retreat so that he can avoid being overwhelmed. Maybe in the future, more Action cards will be introduced which will allow such things.
I realize that there is so many details left unexplained. There are so many little things that showcase how the rules work with each other that make it the sum greater than pieces.
Now I just need to find time to play it…
Anybody who knows me, knows that I like to do many things in an abstract fashion. I do not like the tactical game play of D&D as I find it very confining and limited. The reason why I find tactical play so confining is because when I picture combat, I picture a movie in my head. D&D will never, ever, following that fast-paced, flowing visual that I get.
The holy grail of combat scenes, to me, was presented in Lord of the Rings. The fight near the end with the Fellowship vs. the Urak-Hai. I’ve never seen a more compelling and intricate fight scene. Why do I love it so?
There were multiple scenes/settings, involving a clearing, ruins that were climbed & a heavy forest
There were multiple scenes, including the Fellowship fighting, Frodo and his crew’s dilemma, Borimir’s death and Aragorn’s one on one fight with Lurtz
Aragorn vs. Lurtz is a stunning example of a brutal, anything to win fight. Lurtz use his shield as a weapon (throwing it at Aragorn). Aragorn lost his sword and had to draw a knife to use. It was a well choreographed fight.
You cannot run that scene in D&D. Or if you do, it conjures images of cheeto eating, pop drinking nerds who run the combat through it’s numbers. Tactical combat is sterile. You can move X squares, you can perform X attacks, you are frozen in time when it’s not your initiative, etc.
I’m not saying that I’ve hated D&D combat over the years, but it’s sterile and has never quite achieved the lofty highs which I, as a storyguide, desire. I prefer a lot of narration when I run a game and allowing characters to go the extra mile. I want combat to ebb and flow.
When Warhammer 2nd edition came out, I was eager to re-live my youth. The world of Warhammer is dirty and corrupt. Generally my favourite type of fantasy world. 2nd edition was a faithful re-creation of the original but one thing that I was disappointed with was that their combat system was a clone of D&D 3rd edition. There were Move actions and if you took a Move action you couldn’t take all your attacks. So the only way to take all your attacks in a round is to root yourself in place (which promotes static combat). I ran the 2nd edition game for about 2 years and it was alright.
Enter 3rd edition. Everything has changed.
Whereas 2nd edition was a rules heavy game (like D&D), 3rd edition is…a rules lite game. It’s a bold direction for a game heaped in mountains of rules.
This is not so say that it’s as lite as something like Fate. It’s got it’s rules and they are well structured (once you decipher them from the confounding and poorly designed rule books). But they’ve created a core dice system which allows a GM to easily add bonuses or negatives on the fly.
The trick to doing this is subtle. What they did was create some core dice which provide the bulk of your chances of success. Then they added Fortune dice to add compliments and Challenge and Misfortune dice to add difficulty to an action.
Why this works so well is that each Fortune dice has a mild affect on your total role. Adding a Fortune dice here or there won’t break the bank. So a GM or a rule can feel free to add them without fearing that you’re tipping things too heavily in the player’s favour.
The same works with Challenge & Misfortune dice. Challenge dice are bad for the players. When rolled, they will eat up successes and can cause all sort of problems. Misfortune dice on the other hand, are far less ‘evil’ for a player. They are more likely to not destroy successes so much as ruin something called boons (which are beneficial side effects that most actions can have). The GM can really tailor any challenge by adding either Challenge dice and/or Misfortune dice.
As a great example, take poor, average and superior equipment. Poor equipment can be represented easily as being the ‘same as normal equipment’ but you role a Misfortune dice along with your pool. Superior equipment adds a Fortune dice to the challenges.
It’s a really simple and elegant concept that allows the GM to tailor the game to his desires. Say they like to encourage outrageous actions? Add Fortune dice to players who want to swing on chandeliers and rescue the maiden. Say instead, they want an unforgiving brutal world. Add Misfortune dice to characters after days of trudging through swamps who suddenly find themselves in combat.
Like a true rules lite system, they do not give the rules to govern EVERY situation. The GM is left to use their judgment in 90% of the situations. This is both great and bad. For example, there is no penalty to Stealth while wearing Full Plate Armour. This is not because it’s meant to be that way, but it’s because they didn’t want to bog down every rule with how it is affected by everything else. You the GM must decide what the penalty is. Common sense must rule. Of course, despite it’s name, not everybody has common sense.
The setup for the game, however, is borderline brutal. It is not a pick-up game. Actions are governed through Action cards and the number of Action cards are great. This is good as it adds a lot of variety but it’s bad in that each player must sift through a stack of cards and decipher what they think will be good and bad. Now add Talent cards (more passive effects) which come in multiple flavours (Reputation, Focus and Tactics). Building a character is not an easy task.
This game is a paradigm shift. It’s rules lite so a lot of what is going on, while governed by Action cards in combat, will have to be judged by the GM during the game. Something that can be good and bad. Even a good GM can have bad rules calls.
They encourage a ‘say-yes’ attitude which I’ve seen in other games but which is better done here. D&D 4th edition suggested a ‘say-yes’ attitude which is all well and good but if most things are governed by the rules already…what is there to ‘say-yes’ too? The DM’s guide did have a nice section of how to govern some out of the box things, such as knocking over a giant statue to crush a giant. But…the question was, why bother? You’re already a fantasy superhero in D&D. Your powers are awesome so there is little reason to bother with anything out side the box.
In Warhammer, you’ve got a core mechanic that can blend with virtually any situation but you’ve got a lack of a tome of rules to go with it. So the ‘say-yes’ attitude is easy. A player wants to do something very difficult? Throw Challenge dice at them and if they succeed, great. If they want to do something tricky, throw Misfortune dice at them.
I’ve not meant this to be an attack on D&D and I generally make it no secret that I dislike 4th edition. Warhammer has the style and attitude that I like. I think it’ll work out really well…for those of us willing to fight through the terribly organized rules.
Oh, so getting back to my Lord of the Rings fight.
How does Warhammer handle this sort of battle?
Well check this out:
Map: Instead of a map with squares you’ve got a location card. It gives you the 411 on the location and what sort of perils you might face. Not really required but it gives you more insight as to what additional effects might transpire during the battle.
To make things interesting, you could incorporate multiple location cards to set up a full battlefield. So you could have your clearing, your ruins, your deep forest, etc. To run the LotR fight you would still have to give reason for the players to move or stay at one location. In the movie, the heroes of the Fellowship attempted to meet the onslaught of orcs, only to find that they were horribly outnumbered and the orcs were focused on the prize, which was the hobbits. Thus you have the orcs pour past the heroes and move to other locations. Additionally, while the hobbits are located in the deep forest location, you have it so nobody, friend or foe, knows their exact location without a proper search. Thus charging into the forest itself to try to save the day may not actually amount to anything.
Movement: Instead of squares, you’ve got distance ranks which are abstract. No need to know if you are 100 feet or metres from your target. Engaged, Close, Medium, Long and Extreme are your distance ranks.
Manoeuvres: In order to change distance ranks, pull a weapon, hold excess spell power or do other minor things in combat, you must perform a Manoeuvre. You get one free Manoeuvre during your turn but if you want to take more, you can take a point of Fatigue. You can suffer a fair bit of Fatigue but if you suffer too much, you’ll drop unconscious.
Combat: From there the action proceeds as normal. Action cards spice up combat as a means to encourage something other than, “I attack”. Once fighting beginnings, there is only a small amount of Manoeuvres that will be done. I haven’t gone through all of them, but ‘maneuvering’ your enemy isn’t a common effect. As such there is little reason to ‘give ground’ as Aragorn is forced to do, which forces him to climb the ruins in one scene, to retreat so that he can avoid being overwhelmed. Maybe in the future, more Action cards will be introduced which will allow such things.
I realize that there is so many details left unexplained. There are so many little things that showcase how the rules work with each other that make it the sum greater than pieces.
Now I just need to find time to play it…
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Best Potential Mechanics
I’ve come across two games which have excellent mechanics that I’m tempted to use or borrow for my own game design. I will discuss the first here and the second one in a later post.
The first comes from the new Warhammer RPG. The new game features non-numbered dice. The dice themselves have Axes (hits) and/or Boost icons on them which is reminiscent of their Descent board game.
What you loose in legacy you make up in potential. One of the best things that a system like this COULD do is mediate various effects into the dice. (I do not believe that they are going to from the previews that I’ve read but I’m talking about potential here).
Say you had a HIT icon and a BOOST icon on your dice. When you roll the dice, the HIT icons could reveal how hard you hit your opponent. It’s both accuracy and damage. Easy. Now what do those BOOSTS represent?
If you had a HAMMER – How about knocking your foe back?
If you had an AXE – How about damaging their armour?
If you had a SWORD – How about maneuvering your foe?
The point being that the dice can start telling more than just hitting and damage. They can show how the battle unfolds. It’s a neat concept that has a lot of potential.
Further to this, the new Warhammer RPG brings in Misfortune and some sort of Difficulty dice. It’s the Misfortune dice that I like the idea of.
Most games have generic (and boring) ways to inflict the character with hindrances. Disease, poisons, lingering wounds, exhaustion, etc all have the same thing. They hit the character with a negative of some sort. It’s not generally that much fun to play a character with a negative. You miss lots or inflict no real damage. In short you fail because of your hindrances.
A Misfortune dice is an interesting concept. How I could see using it is quite simple. You roll the Misfortune dice along with your regular dice. Thy do not ‘eat up’ successes or anything but add some sort of complications if they come up with any HITS. The complication can be narrative as much as a rule.
For example, say your character is a great warrior but sick with the Skaven plague. You’ve got a couple of Misfortune dice. You roll your attack against an enemy adding in two Misfortune dice. Say you get HITS on both your attack dice and Misfortune dice. What happens? Well your attack still hits and causes damage. Go you! But something back happens as well. Maybe you’ve lost your weapon in the attack? Maybe you’ve slipped on the mud and are on your ass? Maybe you enter into a coughing fit. Regardless for once, the dice encourage a more dramatic scene.
What I really like about the Misfortune die is that it’s not just versatile but it’s easily adaptable. You can fluidly insert it into virtually any game. It’s just an add-on to the dice that you’re already rolling. The only modification is for how to interpret the effects for that system.
Warhammer brings an exciting new dice mechanic potential to gaming but I’ll hold my reservation. I was extremely excited about Android the board game until I played it three times and it lost it’s shine entirely. I was extremely excited about 4th D&D and it proved a disaster (IMHO, of course). I’m not expecting greatness from the new Warhammer game. But the previous incarnations presented themselves as a grim and gritty world, in which the both adjectives could be largely ignored by a well constructed party due to some shoddy rule loopholes (Allow Damage reduction to get too high and healing to be too casual). This new Warhammer looks to turn it more into a ‘game’ than a role playing experience. There is nothing wrong with that, I suppose. But it would be nice to look forward to a game where the mechanics themselves not just supported the grim and gritty feel but rather encouraged it.
Well, if I can find a way to afford the huge buy in ($100 for the box set) when it comes out, I'll have to give it a whirl.
The first comes from the new Warhammer RPG. The new game features non-numbered dice. The dice themselves have Axes (hits) and/or Boost icons on them which is reminiscent of their Descent board game.
What you loose in legacy you make up in potential. One of the best things that a system like this COULD do is mediate various effects into the dice. (I do not believe that they are going to from the previews that I’ve read but I’m talking about potential here).
Say you had a HIT icon and a BOOST icon on your dice. When you roll the dice, the HIT icons could reveal how hard you hit your opponent. It’s both accuracy and damage. Easy. Now what do those BOOSTS represent?
If you had a HAMMER – How about knocking your foe back?
If you had an AXE – How about damaging their armour?
If you had a SWORD – How about maneuvering your foe?
The point being that the dice can start telling more than just hitting and damage. They can show how the battle unfolds. It’s a neat concept that has a lot of potential.
Further to this, the new Warhammer RPG brings in Misfortune and some sort of Difficulty dice. It’s the Misfortune dice that I like the idea of.
Most games have generic (and boring) ways to inflict the character with hindrances. Disease, poisons, lingering wounds, exhaustion, etc all have the same thing. They hit the character with a negative of some sort. It’s not generally that much fun to play a character with a negative. You miss lots or inflict no real damage. In short you fail because of your hindrances.
A Misfortune dice is an interesting concept. How I could see using it is quite simple. You roll the Misfortune dice along with your regular dice. Thy do not ‘eat up’ successes or anything but add some sort of complications if they come up with any HITS. The complication can be narrative as much as a rule.
For example, say your character is a great warrior but sick with the Skaven plague. You’ve got a couple of Misfortune dice. You roll your attack against an enemy adding in two Misfortune dice. Say you get HITS on both your attack dice and Misfortune dice. What happens? Well your attack still hits and causes damage. Go you! But something back happens as well. Maybe you’ve lost your weapon in the attack? Maybe you’ve slipped on the mud and are on your ass? Maybe you enter into a coughing fit. Regardless for once, the dice encourage a more dramatic scene.
What I really like about the Misfortune die is that it’s not just versatile but it’s easily adaptable. You can fluidly insert it into virtually any game. It’s just an add-on to the dice that you’re already rolling. The only modification is for how to interpret the effects for that system.
Warhammer brings an exciting new dice mechanic potential to gaming but I’ll hold my reservation. I was extremely excited about Android the board game until I played it three times and it lost it’s shine entirely. I was extremely excited about 4th D&D and it proved a disaster (IMHO, of course). I’m not expecting greatness from the new Warhammer game. But the previous incarnations presented themselves as a grim and gritty world, in which the both adjectives could be largely ignored by a well constructed party due to some shoddy rule loopholes (Allow Damage reduction to get too high and healing to be too casual). This new Warhammer looks to turn it more into a ‘game’ than a role playing experience. There is nothing wrong with that, I suppose. But it would be nice to look forward to a game where the mechanics themselves not just supported the grim and gritty feel but rather encouraged it.
Well, if I can find a way to afford the huge buy in ($100 for the box set) when it comes out, I'll have to give it a whirl.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
10 Things you didn't know about the current KC - Part 6
Burning Cinematic points
You can now permanently get rid of Cinematic points. Why would you want to? Because there is no other way to 'guarantee' some sort of game effect, albeit, sometimes that might be temporary.
When you burn Cinematic points, the camera is on YOU and all players should try to respect that.
I've given some examples of the things you can do on Page 243.
A generic examples are: Survive anything.
Other examples are based on what you are, particularly your Conviction. Divine can become heroes and can gain back all their Severe wounds. Infernal can make a Secular Action SUCCEED. Deistical can force others to respect ancient traditions (such as keeping the peace).
You can now permanently get rid of Cinematic points. Why would you want to? Because there is no other way to 'guarantee' some sort of game effect, albeit, sometimes that might be temporary.
When you burn Cinematic points, the camera is on YOU and all players should try to respect that.
I've given some examples of the things you can do on Page 243.
A generic examples are: Survive anything.
Other examples are based on what you are, particularly your Conviction. Divine can become heroes and can gain back all their Severe wounds. Infernal can make a Secular Action SUCCEED. Deistical can force others to respect ancient traditions (such as keeping the peace).
10 Things you didn't know about the current KC - Part 5
Lingering
Lingering is a game term in which an effect...umm...lingers around. (Lasting lasts for 1 or more scenes, whereas Lingering will last, typically for much longer).
But there are now Lingering Wounds.
Setbacks (such as gained from Ranks of Maturity or potentially Hollow Death and Crucifixion) are examples of Lingering Trauma.
But now there are Lingering physical wounds. Not many things cause them but a few things here and there do.
Recure cannot heal Lingering wounds. They must heal naturally. They shift you one step up on the healing chart to heal (so Surface wounds takes 1 day each to heal, whereas Severe wounds take 1 week each to heal.
Lingering is a game term in which an effect...umm...lingers around. (Lasting lasts for 1 or more scenes, whereas Lingering will last, typically for much longer).
But there are now Lingering Wounds.
Setbacks (such as gained from Ranks of Maturity or potentially Hollow Death and Crucifixion) are examples of Lingering Trauma.
But now there are Lingering physical wounds. Not many things cause them but a few things here and there do.
- Impartation causes Lingering wounds
- Recure's retribution causes Lingering wounds
- When under the effects of Perversion, when you take wounds, they become Lingering
Recure cannot heal Lingering wounds. They must heal naturally. They shift you one step up on the healing chart to heal (so Surface wounds takes 1 day each to heal, whereas Severe wounds take 1 week each to heal.
10 Things you didn't know about the current KC - Part 4
Resources
Lackeys only allow you to re-roll EFFORT.
Overseers now not only manage 1 extra Resource/Temp Secular Power, but you can assign them to any action that interacts with an Opposed Roll. It gives that opposed challenge a re-roll. This is especially effective if you are doing an Investigation, a Hunt or even something that defends against such, like a Hide action.
Wealth gives +2 Marks to Acquire actions. I just felt it was taking too long to acquire all the stuff to help facilitate one's turn, thus it'll go by quicker.
Lackeys only allow you to re-roll EFFORT.
Overseers now not only manage 1 extra Resource/Temp Secular Power, but you can assign them to any action that interacts with an Opposed Roll. It gives that opposed challenge a re-roll. This is especially effective if you are doing an Investigation, a Hunt or even something that defends against such, like a Hide action.
Wealth gives +2 Marks to Acquire actions. I just felt it was taking too long to acquire all the stuff to help facilitate one's turn, thus it'll go by quicker.
10 Things you didn't know about the current KC - Part 3
Antithetical Techniques - They aren't just for breakfast anymore.
It's possible to have a Virtuous but Immoral character who wants to 'convert' their 'goody' Techniques into something that befits their Morality. Here ya go! This Preeminence lets you do it. At the back of the Technique section you get the modifications to your normal Techniques.
Some Techniques have no changes.
Some Techniques have slight changes. An example is Scourge's Dramatic Maneuver: Condemn. Instead of harming evil, this DM harms good people.
And some Techniques have a complete change. My personal favorite is Infestation, which allows you to 'visit plagues upon your enemies'...and because it's still a Slothful Technique, it sorta affects everybody around you including friends and bystanders.
It's possible to have a Virtuous but Immoral character who wants to 'convert' their 'goody' Techniques into something that befits their Morality. Here ya go! This Preeminence lets you do it. At the back of the Technique section you get the modifications to your normal Techniques.
Some Techniques have no changes.
Some Techniques have slight changes. An example is Scourge's Dramatic Maneuver: Condemn. Instead of harming evil, this DM harms good people.
And some Techniques have a complete change. My personal favorite is Infestation, which allows you to 'visit plagues upon your enemies'...and because it's still a Slothful Technique, it sorta affects everybody around you including friends and bystanders.
10 Things you didn't know about the current KC - Part 2
Secular Potency is a new feature of Secular Power. It was always annoying that you couldn't do anything with your Secular Power at a game. It was a pain in the ass for one-shot games, lemme tell you.
Secular Potency comes when your character has a Predomination. Predomination in turn, has become a bit more personal. The character who sets it up sets it up to their liking and nobody else's.
When you have Secular Power and a Predomination, you gain some Secular Potency. Secular Potency is a form of worship, if you must know. People of liked mind which your Fallen draws power from. This is potent stuff (hence the name).
Secular Potency allows you to perform the following bonuses:
Secular Potency comes when your character has a Predomination. Predomination in turn, has become a bit more personal. The character who sets it up sets it up to their liking and nobody else's.
When you have Secular Power and a Predomination, you gain some Secular Potency. Secular Potency is a form of worship, if you must know. People of liked mind which your Fallen draws power from. This is potent stuff (hence the name).
Secular Potency allows you to perform the following bonuses:
- Empower:You increase your Technique by 1 rank for 1 action. This can raise your power to a previously unknown 4th rank but this only benefits you if the power has a progression of 1/1 basis. Powers such as Corruption or Recure, which give one Thing per rank are obvious.
- Overpower: You gain 1 Advantage (that's +1 to the die roll) to any non-combat Technique.
- Gnosis: If you use it on somebody, you can learn whether their actions are influenced by a Technique (or any other magical power really). You don't know who the heck did it or what the Technique is, only that this person is affected by something.
- With Wings Spread: This is the most potent ability in the game. And not everybody can do it. You either need multiple aligned Districts or a fully aligned Civitas (depending on the style of game you're playing). If you can pull this off, kudos. Anyway, you can use a non-combat Technique that affects the entire Civitas! Sweet huh. There are limitations to it's use. Humans are affected by your Technique as if it were 1 rank lower. Fallen and Nephilim as two ranks lower. Angels and devils are the same however, they have a chance of shrugging off the effect of this, so it's not likely that you'll be able to just fuck with angels/devils for funsies. Oh and if you want to time it, you can try using Pure Slumber and give the city some crazy, horrible nightmare, then see how long it takes for the Shrouds to come and tear you apart.
10 Things you didn't know about the current KC - Part 1
To finally support some of the crazy ideas in the game, having a Breakdown now has different effects depending on your Morality and 'creature type'.
Irredeemable characters, for example, who have a Breakdown becomes crazy, blood thristy maniacs who are out of control. You could probably help redeem them but...it's a lot easier just to hunt them down and put them out of their misery.
Nephilim are the new peach. Anybody who knows the background knows that Nephilim are bad cuz they are often out of control. But other than through role-playing, that wasn't a reality. Until now. Because, baby, when Nephilim have a Breakdown...watch out. See for Nephilim were always supposed to be ticking time bombs. Now for every Trauma in the set that they had when they went off the deep end, they will gain the Preeminence: Abnormality OR add one rank to one of their Body Prowesses. And of course they are insane and hate the living.
Irredeemable characters, for example, who have a Breakdown becomes crazy, blood thristy maniacs who are out of control. You could probably help redeem them but...it's a lot easier just to hunt them down and put them out of their misery.
Nephilim are the new peach. Anybody who knows the background knows that Nephilim are bad cuz they are often out of control. But other than through role-playing, that wasn't a reality. Until now. Because, baby, when Nephilim have a Breakdown...watch out. See for Nephilim were always supposed to be ticking time bombs. Now for every Trauma in the set that they had when they went off the deep end, they will gain the Preeminence: Abnormality OR add one rank to one of their Body Prowesses. And of course they are insane and hate the living.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Greatest Game Evar?
I’m no expert for video games but I know what I like. Every once in a while, you come across a game that tickles your fancy and won’t stop until your red in the face and gasping for air. It’s very possible, that InFamous for the PS3 is such a game.
I have only played it for an hour but it was a spell bound hour. It’s one of those games that, for me, the constellations of stars came into alignment and almost everything they did, so far, has been as close to perfection for a video game to achieve.
Bold words, no doubt.
I, am a huge fan of the story in a video game. I will admit, in recent years, I’ve turned the difficulty down to Easy on some games because…while their fighting systems are fun, I just know they are going to get repetitive. So I don’t care to die 23 times when fighting an end boss. I just want to get past him to see what’s next. I want the story more than I want the game-play.
After playing InFamous, even briefly, I let it roll around in my head to pick apart all the pieces and why it came together for me. Allow me to explain why the game play is so good, and then I can explain why the story is great.
First, the game seems to be taken some of what made Assassin’s Creed a good game. The free-form run everywhere. Assassin’s Creed was a good game, but not a great game. It did allow you to climb everything and that was great amounts of fun. I liked the combat system but it sounds like a lot of people who didn’t. The missions are repetitive and I completely ignored the flag acquiring missions (and thankfully, the game didn’t screw you for ignoring them). A.C. suffered because some of the required jumping was frustrating (not God of War frustrating but still). I died a couple of times from some really talk building falls. The missions are a little boring, because you did the same thing. Wandering around was neat but you had guards who couldn’t seem to recognize you yet Templars knew who you were the instant they saw you. Stealth seemed to amount to lowering your head and moving slower. You move at a brisk pace, especially later in the game, and the guards freak out on your ass. I guess people were allowed to ride horses but not very fast, back in the day. Again, it was a good game but not a great game. The best part being the ability to climb around the world.
InFamous does the same. And…well…better. Not much better, because not much needed to be improved. I was worried about the jumping controls but they are the most forgiving in a game and I’m thankful for that. If you miss your jump but are close, you’ll catch the object you were jumping on (rather than land on it). It’s very parkour in your running style which is almost getting overused but it’s still pretty fricken’ cool. But every once in a while you will miss your fall and plummet to the ground.
Which is pretty fricken’ awesome in InFamous. Why? Oh, I must have forgotten to mention it: InFamous (if you didn’t already know) is a superhero game. You are nigh-invulnerable (to falls at least, less so to bullets). And I don’t know about you, but when I fall a few stories, I really like the idea of cracking pavement under me. And InFamous does not fail to deliver. In fact, you can come down full of cracking lightning if you want. It’s pretty damn cool.
I wasn’t sold on the lightning powers at first. Who’s the most well known lightning guy out there? Electro. Who has the lamest costume next to the Riddler? That would be Electro again.
Regardless, the electricity powers are, without a doubt, a fantastic choice. I don’t even know where to start here.
First, they are flashy. And that’s just cool. Flashy when you use them (blasting lightning bolts out of your hands and shockwaving people with lightning). Flashy when you stand around, cracking with energy. And flashy when you move about the environment. I’d like to think that somebody walked into an office and issued the blanket statement: Electricity…everything…annnnd go! Because even while you’re walking through a puddle of water, electricity crackles through it. When you shoot something metal, like a car or a chain link fence, electricity lingers on it. It’s pretty sexy.
Second, this game has a good vs. evil mechanic (more on that later). The gangs have taken over so when you blast away at them you are actually tasering them into submission. There is a two fold mechanic that is happening. And it’s brilliant. First, you are incapacitating the bad guys, rather than outright murdering them. Second, if you happen to blast a bystander, you only stun them rather than accidentally kill them, which is great if you’re trying to play good. I mean, you’re not going to get a Christmas card from them but at least you can feel like a non-murderous hero. Now you get 5 XP based on taking the baddies down. But you can go and find their stunned into submission bodies and if you want to play evil, throw another jolt of power into them, which not only kills them but earns you 1 extra XP. I really like that they throw in that mechanic to allow the evil players to feel like they are being evil and yet have us good players feel like it’s not so implausible that we are blasting away and not killing the baddies.
My final love of the electricity powers is difficult to explain because it isn’t obvious. The electricity idea just ‘fits’. They make the game fit it and they fit into the game. I’ll try to explain. Without getting into the story too much (that’s for later), you have a huge chunk of a post-apocalyptic city that you can wander around in. Your character stores and controls, but does not generate, electricity. Now this is where I take my hat off to the game designers and give them the Chuck Norris thumbs up and nod. Because they balanced this perfectly.
So at the beginning of the game you shoot lightning bolts and perform a close in shockwave. But all your powers come from a battery inside you (not an actual battery but a number of points of power you possess). Now here’s the thing: I can see a LOT of games that would have said: well…we don’t want you shooting too much, so each shot you do will eat up the battery, that way the player will have to play smart. Instead they went with a: lightning is fucking cool so the amount of energy from your battery that a single electrical bolt is entirely negligible. Go ahead. Squeeze off a hundred or so without recharging. God bless them. Shockwave gives a significant dent to your battery, but you can still fire out probably 6 or so before drying out the internal battery.
So now we come to recharging your battery. The city, for the most part, still has power…thus you just have to walk up to a lamp post and drain the power from it. Easy. And solid gold. And it looks cool.
But wait, it actually gets better.
When I said, your powers fit and the game makes the powers fit. This is where it all comes together. I figure this one part stroke of genius and one part stroke of luck.
InFamous is a sandbox game. You can run around in the world and do kewl stuff. But in every game out there, there are areas which your character isn’t supposed to get into. You’re not supposed to because…well…because the level designers don’t want you to. It’s either where the big bad is or something they don’t want you to explore yet. Most often, this is done in a very heavy handed method: You can’t get in there. The classic locked door that cannot be picked, even if you’re playing a master thief. The force field. The wall of goons that, truly, you could probably beat if the game allowed you to. Whatever. Virtually all games that try to give you a sandbox also give you walls you can’t get past.
InFamous has the same walls…sorta. See, instead of saying, you can’t go in…the game has areas in town that have no functional power. Therefore…you could go in there…but eventually you would run out of juice…and then you would be shot…and then death would come. So instead, you have to do a mission to restore the power to that location, which in turn, allows the game designers to set up whatever hoops they would like for you to go through. But instead of feeling like the artificial/classic locked door, it feels natural. Of course my character wouldn’t go into that area…eventually I’d be helpless.
Let’s now chat about the good vs. evil. This is a mechanic that’s become quite prevalent in games. To me, I first took notice of it in the Star Wars games. Star Wars: Dark Forces was one of the first (that I recall) that gave you a path choice. Do good and you get the good guy ending. Do bad and you get the bad guy ending. Oh and you get good and bad powers as well. Now every Star Wars game does this so it’s become standard. InFamous works with it but does nothing to reinvent the good vs. evil paths. You get different powers if you go good or evil. Two thumbs up for that as it adds to the replayability.
However, the story benefits from the good vs. evil conflict greatly. And they do a great job with it. Better than Star Wars does.
See, in the Star Wars games, your good and evil actions are despite the game, not the cause of the game. You either act like a titanic dickwad to get the evil powers or act like a saint for the good powers. Some acts, which seem neutral, are classified as evil which didn’t seem entirely fair.
InFamous does it better because of it’s storyline.
So let’s touch upon that.
You’re a courier. You were taking a package in ‘the big city’. The package…exploded. While you were carrying it. Naturally, you survive while the city is nearly destroyed. (This actually makes sense because it wasn’t a ‘bomb’ that exploded).
The city is now a quarantine zone. Plague is running rampant. Gangs have taken over and are shooting people. A wall has been put up around the island city. It’s very inspired by the Escape from New York movie. And. You. Have. Superpowers.
Now here is why the good vs. evil works so well. The bystanders who are trying to live are being terrorised by the gangs. And with superpowers, why would you not want to help them. Thus the game gives you obvious justification of why you should turn good. But quickly into the game, the Voice of Survival (some survivalist nut with a TV) goes on to reveal that YOU are a terrorist and should be turned in. As Men In Black put it perfectly: A person is smart. People are stupid. Thus the bystanders quickly turn against you, believing you to be a terrorist. Oh and your girlfriend immediately leaves you (cuz her sister died in the explosion that you appear to have caused) and your best friend is…well…still your friend but a little afraid of you. Thus the game gives you obvious justification of why you should turn evil. Solid gold. The good and evil fit very well into the game and the game fits very well into good and evil. Two great tastes that go great together.
Shortly into the game you try to escape only to be caught. You are sent back into the city with a deal from a federal agent. She’s kinda a bitch but she’s doing her job, so again, you can feel like you’re being a hero working with the law or being a villain who is blackmailed into being her whipping boy. Your missions are given from her to try to find somebody who was at the heart of the package you were carrying. You are given multiple missions that you can explore as needed. But you can just as easily wander the city and look for neat things to do.
So now you have a sandbox game, with a character who has ample justification to be good or evil, with lightning superpowers, who can run every freakin’ where in the city and leap off buildings with reckless abandon and perform missions as needed (they are required to progress the game but you can do them at your leisure). Wow.
I have to say, if this game ends as well as it starts, this will easily be in my top five games of all time.
I’ll give the game designers of InFamous one more zooming focus shot of Chuck Norris giving the thumbs up and a nod. And a slow clap. Awesome game guys.
I have only played it for an hour but it was a spell bound hour. It’s one of those games that, for me, the constellations of stars came into alignment and almost everything they did, so far, has been as close to perfection for a video game to achieve.
Bold words, no doubt.
I, am a huge fan of the story in a video game. I will admit, in recent years, I’ve turned the difficulty down to Easy on some games because…while their fighting systems are fun, I just know they are going to get repetitive. So I don’t care to die 23 times when fighting an end boss. I just want to get past him to see what’s next. I want the story more than I want the game-play.
After playing InFamous, even briefly, I let it roll around in my head to pick apart all the pieces and why it came together for me. Allow me to explain why the game play is so good, and then I can explain why the story is great.
First, the game seems to be taken some of what made Assassin’s Creed a good game. The free-form run everywhere. Assassin’s Creed was a good game, but not a great game. It did allow you to climb everything and that was great amounts of fun. I liked the combat system but it sounds like a lot of people who didn’t. The missions are repetitive and I completely ignored the flag acquiring missions (and thankfully, the game didn’t screw you for ignoring them). A.C. suffered because some of the required jumping was frustrating (not God of War frustrating but still). I died a couple of times from some really talk building falls. The missions are a little boring, because you did the same thing. Wandering around was neat but you had guards who couldn’t seem to recognize you yet Templars knew who you were the instant they saw you. Stealth seemed to amount to lowering your head and moving slower. You move at a brisk pace, especially later in the game, and the guards freak out on your ass. I guess people were allowed to ride horses but not very fast, back in the day. Again, it was a good game but not a great game. The best part being the ability to climb around the world.
InFamous does the same. And…well…better. Not much better, because not much needed to be improved. I was worried about the jumping controls but they are the most forgiving in a game and I’m thankful for that. If you miss your jump but are close, you’ll catch the object you were jumping on (rather than land on it). It’s very parkour in your running style which is almost getting overused but it’s still pretty fricken’ cool. But every once in a while you will miss your fall and plummet to the ground.
Which is pretty fricken’ awesome in InFamous. Why? Oh, I must have forgotten to mention it: InFamous (if you didn’t already know) is a superhero game. You are nigh-invulnerable (to falls at least, less so to bullets). And I don’t know about you, but when I fall a few stories, I really like the idea of cracking pavement under me. And InFamous does not fail to deliver. In fact, you can come down full of cracking lightning if you want. It’s pretty damn cool.
I wasn’t sold on the lightning powers at first. Who’s the most well known lightning guy out there? Electro. Who has the lamest costume next to the Riddler? That would be Electro again.
Regardless, the electricity powers are, without a doubt, a fantastic choice. I don’t even know where to start here.
First, they are flashy. And that’s just cool. Flashy when you use them (blasting lightning bolts out of your hands and shockwaving people with lightning). Flashy when you stand around, cracking with energy. And flashy when you move about the environment. I’d like to think that somebody walked into an office and issued the blanket statement: Electricity…everything…annnnd go! Because even while you’re walking through a puddle of water, electricity crackles through it. When you shoot something metal, like a car or a chain link fence, electricity lingers on it. It’s pretty sexy.
Second, this game has a good vs. evil mechanic (more on that later). The gangs have taken over so when you blast away at them you are actually tasering them into submission. There is a two fold mechanic that is happening. And it’s brilliant. First, you are incapacitating the bad guys, rather than outright murdering them. Second, if you happen to blast a bystander, you only stun them rather than accidentally kill them, which is great if you’re trying to play good. I mean, you’re not going to get a Christmas card from them but at least you can feel like a non-murderous hero. Now you get 5 XP based on taking the baddies down. But you can go and find their stunned into submission bodies and if you want to play evil, throw another jolt of power into them, which not only kills them but earns you 1 extra XP. I really like that they throw in that mechanic to allow the evil players to feel like they are being evil and yet have us good players feel like it’s not so implausible that we are blasting away and not killing the baddies.
My final love of the electricity powers is difficult to explain because it isn’t obvious. The electricity idea just ‘fits’. They make the game fit it and they fit into the game. I’ll try to explain. Without getting into the story too much (that’s for later), you have a huge chunk of a post-apocalyptic city that you can wander around in. Your character stores and controls, but does not generate, electricity. Now this is where I take my hat off to the game designers and give them the Chuck Norris thumbs up and nod. Because they balanced this perfectly.
So at the beginning of the game you shoot lightning bolts and perform a close in shockwave. But all your powers come from a battery inside you (not an actual battery but a number of points of power you possess). Now here’s the thing: I can see a LOT of games that would have said: well…we don’t want you shooting too much, so each shot you do will eat up the battery, that way the player will have to play smart. Instead they went with a: lightning is fucking cool so the amount of energy from your battery that a single electrical bolt is entirely negligible. Go ahead. Squeeze off a hundred or so without recharging. God bless them. Shockwave gives a significant dent to your battery, but you can still fire out probably 6 or so before drying out the internal battery.
So now we come to recharging your battery. The city, for the most part, still has power…thus you just have to walk up to a lamp post and drain the power from it. Easy. And solid gold. And it looks cool.
But wait, it actually gets better.
When I said, your powers fit and the game makes the powers fit. This is where it all comes together. I figure this one part stroke of genius and one part stroke of luck.
InFamous is a sandbox game. You can run around in the world and do kewl stuff. But in every game out there, there are areas which your character isn’t supposed to get into. You’re not supposed to because…well…because the level designers don’t want you to. It’s either where the big bad is or something they don’t want you to explore yet. Most often, this is done in a very heavy handed method: You can’t get in there. The classic locked door that cannot be picked, even if you’re playing a master thief. The force field. The wall of goons that, truly, you could probably beat if the game allowed you to. Whatever. Virtually all games that try to give you a sandbox also give you walls you can’t get past.
InFamous has the same walls…sorta. See, instead of saying, you can’t go in…the game has areas in town that have no functional power. Therefore…you could go in there…but eventually you would run out of juice…and then you would be shot…and then death would come. So instead, you have to do a mission to restore the power to that location, which in turn, allows the game designers to set up whatever hoops they would like for you to go through. But instead of feeling like the artificial/classic locked door, it feels natural. Of course my character wouldn’t go into that area…eventually I’d be helpless.
Let’s now chat about the good vs. evil. This is a mechanic that’s become quite prevalent in games. To me, I first took notice of it in the Star Wars games. Star Wars: Dark Forces was one of the first (that I recall) that gave you a path choice. Do good and you get the good guy ending. Do bad and you get the bad guy ending. Oh and you get good and bad powers as well. Now every Star Wars game does this so it’s become standard. InFamous works with it but does nothing to reinvent the good vs. evil paths. You get different powers if you go good or evil. Two thumbs up for that as it adds to the replayability.
However, the story benefits from the good vs. evil conflict greatly. And they do a great job with it. Better than Star Wars does.
See, in the Star Wars games, your good and evil actions are despite the game, not the cause of the game. You either act like a titanic dickwad to get the evil powers or act like a saint for the good powers. Some acts, which seem neutral, are classified as evil which didn’t seem entirely fair.
InFamous does it better because of it’s storyline.
So let’s touch upon that.
You’re a courier. You were taking a package in ‘the big city’. The package…exploded. While you were carrying it. Naturally, you survive while the city is nearly destroyed. (This actually makes sense because it wasn’t a ‘bomb’ that exploded).
The city is now a quarantine zone. Plague is running rampant. Gangs have taken over and are shooting people. A wall has been put up around the island city. It’s very inspired by the Escape from New York movie. And. You. Have. Superpowers.
Now here is why the good vs. evil works so well. The bystanders who are trying to live are being terrorised by the gangs. And with superpowers, why would you not want to help them. Thus the game gives you obvious justification of why you should turn good. But quickly into the game, the Voice of Survival (some survivalist nut with a TV) goes on to reveal that YOU are a terrorist and should be turned in. As Men In Black put it perfectly: A person is smart. People are stupid. Thus the bystanders quickly turn against you, believing you to be a terrorist. Oh and your girlfriend immediately leaves you (cuz her sister died in the explosion that you appear to have caused) and your best friend is…well…still your friend but a little afraid of you. Thus the game gives you obvious justification of why you should turn evil. Solid gold. The good and evil fit very well into the game and the game fits very well into good and evil. Two great tastes that go great together.
Shortly into the game you try to escape only to be caught. You are sent back into the city with a deal from a federal agent. She’s kinda a bitch but she’s doing her job, so again, you can feel like you’re being a hero working with the law or being a villain who is blackmailed into being her whipping boy. Your missions are given from her to try to find somebody who was at the heart of the package you were carrying. You are given multiple missions that you can explore as needed. But you can just as easily wander the city and look for neat things to do.
So now you have a sandbox game, with a character who has ample justification to be good or evil, with lightning superpowers, who can run every freakin’ where in the city and leap off buildings with reckless abandon and perform missions as needed (they are required to progress the game but you can do them at your leisure). Wow.
I have to say, if this game ends as well as it starts, this will easily be in my top five games of all time.
I’ll give the game designers of InFamous one more zooming focus shot of Chuck Norris giving the thumbs up and a nod. And a slow clap. Awesome game guys.
Monday, May 4, 2009
Mk I is dead. Long live Mk II?
So Privateer Press did the unthinkable about a month ago, and they announced the sweeping change that will herald the end of MkI Warmachine and create MkII Warmachine.
The field test is almost over. They will then be closing it. Doing their final revisions. Printing the book. Then releasing it in January of 2010.
Seriously? That’s like 8 months away?
I do truly respect the company for allowing the fans to give feedback on the models. There have been a few changes but I think it’s pretty obvious that what changes there will be minimal. Some players are crying out for massive re-writes on a figure or unit and that’s clearly not going to happen. I figure that PP already knew what they wanted out of most figures and were happy with their results. A minor rule wording change here or there is all they are really looking for. If something is obviously too powerful or too weak, they might look at it.
Here’s the problem. I, like many players, hate, hate, hate (with a side of hate) winning a game due to a rules screw up. I’m not talking about a player who is obviously cheating but when you honest to god think a rule works one way and realize, always after the game, that it doesn’t. You walked away with a victory, feeling pretty good about yourself, only to have the wind sucked out of your sails because you realized that figure X couldn’t do what you did.
Waramchine is a deeply layered game. In a recent MkII game, I had to move my Arc node just enough to avoid giving my opponent cover. It was fairly critical because my dice rolls are shit. No really, my personal luck stat is pretty low. I’m infamous for some stellar crap dice rolls. So I leave nothing to chance.
But lo and behold, my opponent has a unit that can move outside of the turn sequence. Furthermore, he can counter charge my ‘jack. Therefore, I ran another unit up to cockblock his counter-charger. However, I only did that because I honestly thought he was immune to the feat damage. My opponent agreed at the time. I ended up winning the game. Upon retrospect, my figure could not do what I thought he could do. Thus my ‘win’ was null and void. At least in my mind. It was not a win because I screwed up the rules. I could have not have done what I had done. Now I could have still won the game, but I would have accepted giving the warcaster cover and that would have likely made me miss my critical shots. (As it turns out, I was not able to kill her on the dice rolls that I had but she burned to death due to the fire).
So I hate accepting that my victory was tainted. But I’m big enough to accept that it wasn’t a real win.
Now comes the relevancy. Since they will be making some changes with MKII and that it won’t be coming out for almost a year, what do I do until then?
You see, when I play a wargame, I want to play the most authentic version of it that I can. I want to know all the errata, I want to know the rules, I don’t want to screw up any rule. I want neither player to question: well…if you had used the rules correctly, I probably would have won. The bottom line is, I want neither player to question how it ‘could have been’.
So…what version of Warmachine is authentic? I’m sure the obvious answer is MkI, because MkII isn’t released. However, there have been so many sweeping changes from MkI, I feel…I dunno…dirty to use some of the old rules.
I’ll give some examples here. The Holy Zealots were a fantastic unit. They were cheap. I’m not arguing that. Their cost was low, their damage output and defense was high. I never relied on them all the time, but I did like them and when I used them I felt that they were a well above average unit. My enemies feared them and rightly so. I fear the Khador mortar crew. I fear Eiryss. I fear lots of things. Lemme have something that my opponent fears.
So now…in MkII they are a lot more reasonably. That’s not to say that they are good. They suck compared to their old selves. They can be killed quite easily and their damage output is lowered. They are a fragile unit with a mess of weaknesses. I daresay that I will not readily include them in any army.
So if I play with them in the next year, I will feel cheap. Clearly PP felt that they were too powerful. Clearly they exceeded what the company wanted them to do on the battlefield. So clearly, when I play with them, I’m being cheap. I’m exploiting some old rules that the company has every intension of correcting.
This same issue is compounded by other units. The Idrian Skirmishers have been radically transformed from 1 type of unit to another type of unit. Nobody is arguing that they used to be powerful. But before they had excellent range and excellent melee. They were a unit that did it all (and were expensive). Now they have good range and can fight in melee if pressed into it. Their role changes entirely from MkI to MkII (something that I don’t agree with but whatever, I’m not part of the company). As such, if I use the Skirmishers, any strategy I build with them, anything I do with them, has an expiration date. Once the MkII hits, all their accolades and victories will be null and void. I still think that they are a viable unit in MkII. A LOT more than the Holy Zealots (or about 3 other units). So I have no problems playing them now or in the future. I just hate that what I do with them now will be IMPOSSIBLE in the future.
The final example is of an odd tri-man solo group. Visgoth Rhoven. I hadn’t managed to pick them up yet. This is another unit that goes from one thing to something radically different. They were tuff with two F’s before. They had this crazy armour boost by being together that was excellent. I wasn’t sure how to use them but I was keen to give them a try. They also had an excellent and potent ability to allow another figure to ignore some of the line of sight rules.
The MKII version of them…changed them. They aren’t the tanks that they once were. And they changed the aforementioned line of sight ability to something…close but not quite as potent. So…should I buy them now? They really don’t appeal to me half as much as they used to. I didn’t buy them before because I couldn’t easily find them. Now I’ve found them but am a little sad to see them change so much.
They could, between now and the future, be blessed and see some excellent changes. But I don’t want to base my purchase on what could be.
So I’m stuck. The Visgoth is sitting there at the store now, but if I do go buy them and they turn out to be exactly the same way that they were previewed, I know that I just won’t break them out too much. So why spend the money?
And this spirals into PP’s other game Hordes. I just got the new book with all sorts of new stuff all of which is guaranteed to change. Not: might change in the future. It will be obvious that within two years, all the things I did with the Legion of Everblight will be changed. That those cards full and full of wonderful, glorious murderous text will be changed. I know that ‘so will everybody’s’ but after seeing what happened to some of my beloved units, I know that there are parts of Hordes MkII that I will be delighted with and parts that I will be sad to see go. Just like Warmachine MkI.
So…I guess, over the next year, I’ll try a few more games of MkI Warmachine, and feel cheap for using my Holy Zealots before signing off on them for being a cheap filler for when I have a few points to spare in future MkII armies.
I am, ultimately, looking forward to MKII. The game does run cleaner. But with every revamp, there will be units that players will find to be an efficient use of their points and some that will be a waste of their points. Some units that I hadn’t used in a good long time will be dusted off while other units will shelved. And at least one unit that was shelved will remain that way. I guess it’s just the way of things. Some units will always be more efficient than others.
The field test is almost over. They will then be closing it. Doing their final revisions. Printing the book. Then releasing it in January of 2010.
Seriously? That’s like 8 months away?
I do truly respect the company for allowing the fans to give feedback on the models. There have been a few changes but I think it’s pretty obvious that what changes there will be minimal. Some players are crying out for massive re-writes on a figure or unit and that’s clearly not going to happen. I figure that PP already knew what they wanted out of most figures and were happy with their results. A minor rule wording change here or there is all they are really looking for. If something is obviously too powerful or too weak, they might look at it.
Here’s the problem. I, like many players, hate, hate, hate (with a side of hate) winning a game due to a rules screw up. I’m not talking about a player who is obviously cheating but when you honest to god think a rule works one way and realize, always after the game, that it doesn’t. You walked away with a victory, feeling pretty good about yourself, only to have the wind sucked out of your sails because you realized that figure X couldn’t do what you did.
Waramchine is a deeply layered game. In a recent MkII game, I had to move my Arc node just enough to avoid giving my opponent cover. It was fairly critical because my dice rolls are shit. No really, my personal luck stat is pretty low. I’m infamous for some stellar crap dice rolls. So I leave nothing to chance.
But lo and behold, my opponent has a unit that can move outside of the turn sequence. Furthermore, he can counter charge my ‘jack. Therefore, I ran another unit up to cockblock his counter-charger. However, I only did that because I honestly thought he was immune to the feat damage. My opponent agreed at the time. I ended up winning the game. Upon retrospect, my figure could not do what I thought he could do. Thus my ‘win’ was null and void. At least in my mind. It was not a win because I screwed up the rules. I could have not have done what I had done. Now I could have still won the game, but I would have accepted giving the warcaster cover and that would have likely made me miss my critical shots. (As it turns out, I was not able to kill her on the dice rolls that I had but she burned to death due to the fire).
So I hate accepting that my victory was tainted. But I’m big enough to accept that it wasn’t a real win.
Now comes the relevancy. Since they will be making some changes with MKII and that it won’t be coming out for almost a year, what do I do until then?
You see, when I play a wargame, I want to play the most authentic version of it that I can. I want to know all the errata, I want to know the rules, I don’t want to screw up any rule. I want neither player to question: well…if you had used the rules correctly, I probably would have won. The bottom line is, I want neither player to question how it ‘could have been’.
So…what version of Warmachine is authentic? I’m sure the obvious answer is MkI, because MkII isn’t released. However, there have been so many sweeping changes from MkI, I feel…I dunno…dirty to use some of the old rules.
I’ll give some examples here. The Holy Zealots were a fantastic unit. They were cheap. I’m not arguing that. Their cost was low, their damage output and defense was high. I never relied on them all the time, but I did like them and when I used them I felt that they were a well above average unit. My enemies feared them and rightly so. I fear the Khador mortar crew. I fear Eiryss. I fear lots of things. Lemme have something that my opponent fears.
So now…in MkII they are a lot more reasonably. That’s not to say that they are good. They suck compared to their old selves. They can be killed quite easily and their damage output is lowered. They are a fragile unit with a mess of weaknesses. I daresay that I will not readily include them in any army.
So if I play with them in the next year, I will feel cheap. Clearly PP felt that they were too powerful. Clearly they exceeded what the company wanted them to do on the battlefield. So clearly, when I play with them, I’m being cheap. I’m exploiting some old rules that the company has every intension of correcting.
This same issue is compounded by other units. The Idrian Skirmishers have been radically transformed from 1 type of unit to another type of unit. Nobody is arguing that they used to be powerful. But before they had excellent range and excellent melee. They were a unit that did it all (and were expensive). Now they have good range and can fight in melee if pressed into it. Their role changes entirely from MkI to MkII (something that I don’t agree with but whatever, I’m not part of the company). As such, if I use the Skirmishers, any strategy I build with them, anything I do with them, has an expiration date. Once the MkII hits, all their accolades and victories will be null and void. I still think that they are a viable unit in MkII. A LOT more than the Holy Zealots (or about 3 other units). So I have no problems playing them now or in the future. I just hate that what I do with them now will be IMPOSSIBLE in the future.
The final example is of an odd tri-man solo group. Visgoth Rhoven. I hadn’t managed to pick them up yet. This is another unit that goes from one thing to something radically different. They were tuff with two F’s before. They had this crazy armour boost by being together that was excellent. I wasn’t sure how to use them but I was keen to give them a try. They also had an excellent and potent ability to allow another figure to ignore some of the line of sight rules.
The MKII version of them…changed them. They aren’t the tanks that they once were. And they changed the aforementioned line of sight ability to something…close but not quite as potent. So…should I buy them now? They really don’t appeal to me half as much as they used to. I didn’t buy them before because I couldn’t easily find them. Now I’ve found them but am a little sad to see them change so much.
They could, between now and the future, be blessed and see some excellent changes. But I don’t want to base my purchase on what could be.
So I’m stuck. The Visgoth is sitting there at the store now, but if I do go buy them and they turn out to be exactly the same way that they were previewed, I know that I just won’t break them out too much. So why spend the money?
And this spirals into PP’s other game Hordes. I just got the new book with all sorts of new stuff all of which is guaranteed to change. Not: might change in the future. It will be obvious that within two years, all the things I did with the Legion of Everblight will be changed. That those cards full and full of wonderful, glorious murderous text will be changed. I know that ‘so will everybody’s’ but after seeing what happened to some of my beloved units, I know that there are parts of Hordes MkII that I will be delighted with and parts that I will be sad to see go. Just like Warmachine MkI.
So…I guess, over the next year, I’ll try a few more games of MkI Warmachine, and feel cheap for using my Holy Zealots before signing off on them for being a cheap filler for when I have a few points to spare in future MkII armies.
I am, ultimately, looking forward to MKII. The game does run cleaner. But with every revamp, there will be units that players will find to be an efficient use of their points and some that will be a waste of their points. Some units that I hadn’t used in a good long time will be dusted off while other units will shelved. And at least one unit that was shelved will remain that way. I guess it’s just the way of things. Some units will always be more efficient than others.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
The Unthinkable
My main wargame would arguably be Warmachine. I don’t get the opportunity to play it more but that’s mostly my fault. I am, at heart, a little too competitive. Because I don’t play enough, I would rate myself as upper middle.
Warmachine has suffered from several problems, few of which wreck the game itself. The two biggest problems seems to be a slight lack of balance ad a rules glut.
It was the former that bothered me. There were definitely games in Warmachine where you were playing a rock army and faced a scissor or paper army. As in, you either had little chance to fail or win. That I never cared for. You could, of course, retune and tailor your army to beat that scissor or paper but part of the game is not knowing the army you’re going to play against. That’s part of the fun.
However, it was the rules glut that Privateer Press was frustrated with. Every figure had to have kewl special abilities. And once that door is opened, you now have a problem that future releases have to be even more appealing to get players to pick up the new miniatures. In none of the new figures are appealing, then the game collapses.
So Privateer Press has redone their game. A new set of base rules and they’ve revamped all the figures, changing or discarding abilities and altering point costs. It’s a bold move. One that’s left a lot of fans rather frustrated.
The problem is, to avoid the rules glut, you have to remove some of those rules. Refining them only works so much. There were too many rules that allowed you to act on your opponent’s turn, so most of those were cut out (but strangely, not all of them). The problem with acting out of turn became who got to complete their action first. And what if my acting on your turn activate one of your special abilities that allowed you to attack or move your figure again! It became quite the nightmare.
So fine, they removed a bunch of abilities. Naturally, when I have 10 chocolate bars in a week and you take 4 of them away and say I can do just fine with 6 chocolate bars…dude…6 is not the same as 10!!! It doesn’t matter that I didn’t need the 10 chocolate bars…I had them and they were mine and I enjoyed them. Now to say that I only have 6…somehow it’s hard to get excited about just 6 chocolate bars…
Now I’m hungry…
Anyway, I’ve only given it one play in the new rules. I tried some things out as did my opponent. Things that I wouldn’t likely have taken previous to this. I busted out my favourite Warcaster (think of this as an uber wizard who’s like physical buff and can cast crazy powerful spells every round), Kreoss. And while I tried in vain to kill my opponent, the Old Witch, on my turn she did not die (on average rolls I should have killed her). Then, due to a complete fluke, she burned to death at the beginning of my opponent’s turn. I guess you take a victory where you can.
My first impression then, is that this is a great game. I was pleased that several things were toned down but that the game was still workable. People will complain endlessly that they miss ability X or that ability Y was taken from them and it’s not fair ‘I tells ya!’. But one thing that they can’t say is that the game doesn’t play well still.
But it’s still not going to be a fair game. There are still some Warcasters and combos out there that are stupidly easy to pull off. And it is a shame that Privateer Press hasn’t bother to correct those problems.
See, tournaments are a big, big thing to Privateer Press. I wouldn’t play in a tournament because there are too many douchebags in the world, but I love to hear about them.
There are four factions in the game: Khador (the Russians), Cryx (the undead), Cygnar (the ranged/lightning guys) and Menoth (the religious zealots). I know it sounds strange but it’s fun and it works.
Anyway, Khador wins the majority of the tournaments. Followed by Cryx. Then Cygnar and Menoth are probably tied for last place.
So it was with great surprise that in this massive level of change, Khador seems to gotten away with the least amount of change. In particular they had the most powerful Warcaster, Vlad. Vlad has actually managed to defeat half of another player’s army by himself. He is extremely powerful and special tactics were invented on how to defeat just him. I just wanted to see him toned down…and in some ways he was. And then they gave him a brand new ability that makes him just as awesome again. In fact, if he didn’t have that new ability, I wouldn’t feel so threatened by him.
So it makes me think, did each faction have a different editor? Did they not acknowledge the fact that Khador consistently wins more than most and Vlad is at the top of the list of victories?
This is not to say that every faction doesn’t have that Warcaster. Menoth, my faction, has the Harbinger which can protect her people from dying which can be hella frustrating for your opponent.
So they successfully fixed the rules glut. But it seems, that they failed to fix the game balance. After these changes, I can’t imagine Menoth will ever start winning tournaments again. But Cygnar might be very competitive against Cryx for 2nd place. Khador, I suspect, will be at the top still.
We were told, as players, that we are doing a field test of all the figures and rules. To see what works and what doesn’t work. If there are anything still unclear about the rules. But we were told that most likely, nothing will change. Except that they have said that if enough people report a problem or concern, they might consider a change. I’m curious as to how much weight a persons voice carries?
I know (from some personal experience) that you cannot build a perfect and balanced game. But it’s my hope that you can at least have a game where one faction or figure doesn’t roll over others. I find all too often, my opponent has a better combo than me and due to a spell, a feat (an uber spell) and a sweeping assault, I’m vanquished without so much as a “hey!”.
Warmachine has been and always will be, a game where knowing what your opponent can do is just as important as knowing what you can do. I’ve never seen a person win by beginners luck. There is just too many factors to take into account. Case in point, most games of Warmachine are won in a single sweeping round. The game ends with the death of the Warcaster, so you have to not only attack the opponent but protect your Warcaster. The moment you slip up in the later is the moment an opponent can sweep in for the win. Warmachine has a lot of crazy movement where it’s hard to see all the angles that an enemy could move in for the win, so it’s usually impossible to have complete protection from all harm.
Now there is slightly less to remember. Most units had something taken away from them and there are less out of turn instances with the game. Does this alone make it better? In many ways, yes. But people are still going to cry that you nerfed this unit and didn’t nerf that unit.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go to the Privateer Press forum and scream bloody murder over the nerfing of some of my beloved Menoth figures.
Warmachine has suffered from several problems, few of which wreck the game itself. The two biggest problems seems to be a slight lack of balance ad a rules glut.
It was the former that bothered me. There were definitely games in Warmachine where you were playing a rock army and faced a scissor or paper army. As in, you either had little chance to fail or win. That I never cared for. You could, of course, retune and tailor your army to beat that scissor or paper but part of the game is not knowing the army you’re going to play against. That’s part of the fun.
However, it was the rules glut that Privateer Press was frustrated with. Every figure had to have kewl special abilities. And once that door is opened, you now have a problem that future releases have to be even more appealing to get players to pick up the new miniatures. In none of the new figures are appealing, then the game collapses.
So Privateer Press has redone their game. A new set of base rules and they’ve revamped all the figures, changing or discarding abilities and altering point costs. It’s a bold move. One that’s left a lot of fans rather frustrated.
The problem is, to avoid the rules glut, you have to remove some of those rules. Refining them only works so much. There were too many rules that allowed you to act on your opponent’s turn, so most of those were cut out (but strangely, not all of them). The problem with acting out of turn became who got to complete their action first. And what if my acting on your turn activate one of your special abilities that allowed you to attack or move your figure again! It became quite the nightmare.
So fine, they removed a bunch of abilities. Naturally, when I have 10 chocolate bars in a week and you take 4 of them away and say I can do just fine with 6 chocolate bars…dude…6 is not the same as 10!!! It doesn’t matter that I didn’t need the 10 chocolate bars…I had them and they were mine and I enjoyed them. Now to say that I only have 6…somehow it’s hard to get excited about just 6 chocolate bars…
Now I’m hungry…
Anyway, I’ve only given it one play in the new rules. I tried some things out as did my opponent. Things that I wouldn’t likely have taken previous to this. I busted out my favourite Warcaster (think of this as an uber wizard who’s like physical buff and can cast crazy powerful spells every round), Kreoss. And while I tried in vain to kill my opponent, the Old Witch, on my turn she did not die (on average rolls I should have killed her). Then, due to a complete fluke, she burned to death at the beginning of my opponent’s turn. I guess you take a victory where you can.
My first impression then, is that this is a great game. I was pleased that several things were toned down but that the game was still workable. People will complain endlessly that they miss ability X or that ability Y was taken from them and it’s not fair ‘I tells ya!’. But one thing that they can’t say is that the game doesn’t play well still.
But it’s still not going to be a fair game. There are still some Warcasters and combos out there that are stupidly easy to pull off. And it is a shame that Privateer Press hasn’t bother to correct those problems.
See, tournaments are a big, big thing to Privateer Press. I wouldn’t play in a tournament because there are too many douchebags in the world, but I love to hear about them.
There are four factions in the game: Khador (the Russians), Cryx (the undead), Cygnar (the ranged/lightning guys) and Menoth (the religious zealots). I know it sounds strange but it’s fun and it works.
Anyway, Khador wins the majority of the tournaments. Followed by Cryx. Then Cygnar and Menoth are probably tied for last place.
So it was with great surprise that in this massive level of change, Khador seems to gotten away with the least amount of change. In particular they had the most powerful Warcaster, Vlad. Vlad has actually managed to defeat half of another player’s army by himself. He is extremely powerful and special tactics were invented on how to defeat just him. I just wanted to see him toned down…and in some ways he was. And then they gave him a brand new ability that makes him just as awesome again. In fact, if he didn’t have that new ability, I wouldn’t feel so threatened by him.
So it makes me think, did each faction have a different editor? Did they not acknowledge the fact that Khador consistently wins more than most and Vlad is at the top of the list of victories?
This is not to say that every faction doesn’t have that Warcaster. Menoth, my faction, has the Harbinger which can protect her people from dying which can be hella frustrating for your opponent.
So they successfully fixed the rules glut. But it seems, that they failed to fix the game balance. After these changes, I can’t imagine Menoth will ever start winning tournaments again. But Cygnar might be very competitive against Cryx for 2nd place. Khador, I suspect, will be at the top still.
We were told, as players, that we are doing a field test of all the figures and rules. To see what works and what doesn’t work. If there are anything still unclear about the rules. But we were told that most likely, nothing will change. Except that they have said that if enough people report a problem or concern, they might consider a change. I’m curious as to how much weight a persons voice carries?
I know (from some personal experience) that you cannot build a perfect and balanced game. But it’s my hope that you can at least have a game where one faction or figure doesn’t roll over others. I find all too often, my opponent has a better combo than me and due to a spell, a feat (an uber spell) and a sweeping assault, I’m vanquished without so much as a “hey!”.
Warmachine has been and always will be, a game where knowing what your opponent can do is just as important as knowing what you can do. I’ve never seen a person win by beginners luck. There is just too many factors to take into account. Case in point, most games of Warmachine are won in a single sweeping round. The game ends with the death of the Warcaster, so you have to not only attack the opponent but protect your Warcaster. The moment you slip up in the later is the moment an opponent can sweep in for the win. Warmachine has a lot of crazy movement where it’s hard to see all the angles that an enemy could move in for the win, so it’s usually impossible to have complete protection from all harm.
Now there is slightly less to remember. Most units had something taken away from them and there are less out of turn instances with the game. Does this alone make it better? In many ways, yes. But people are still going to cry that you nerfed this unit and didn’t nerf that unit.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go to the Privateer Press forum and scream bloody murder over the nerfing of some of my beloved Menoth figures.
Monday, March 30, 2009
To War!!
I’ve been bit by the board game/war game bug as of late. I guess I realized that I own a bunch of board games and they are collecting dust. In my normal gaming group, there are actually plenty of girls…but the board games I’m talking about aren’t very ‘girl’ friendly.
The boargame I’ve been playing as of late is Starcraft. We joke that there is little reason to actually be playing the board game when we could just be playing the video game, but it’s a different sort of camaraderie when you have a room full of trash talking nerds.
Starcraft is definitely one of those ‘boy’ games. It’s complicated and focuses entirely on competition and war. The game plays…reasonably okay. It is too complex to be what I would call a beer and pretzels game. The game requires you to plan out what you’re going to do during the next turn AND in reverse order. The order that you give first will be your final action. The combat is the same, where you have cards that determine the strength of your unit but only if the card matches the figure. But if you don’t have the correct cards in your hand for a fight, you could have what appears to be a powerful unit who gets beaten by an inferior unit and there isn’t much you can do about it.
It’s…not entirely intuitive but after playing it a few times now, it makes sense.
The problem with Starcraft is that nothing ever feels intuitive. From placing orders to building to fighting, nothing ever feels confident, for lack of a better word. I really have no idea if my plans will work (my orders), or I build too much in one area forgetting about another crucial area or I lose fights which I figure I should win.
I guess Starcraft could technically be the most complex beer and pretzels game out there because I find that there isn’t really much I can do to ensure my victory. I didn’t feel that anybody else could either, other than very obvious, very simple tactics (like people who needed to win by holding X number of areas and nobody attacked them for the entire game).
Starcraft is also a game that punishes you for screwing up. One player amassed a huge army but forgot to buy a transport. His warmachine was immediately brought to a halt and it allowed the other player to survive. What was worse was that we thought that the game might come to an end that round, so he would never even bring his forces to bear, which would have sucked.
Ultimately, Starcraft is a fine way to pass an afternoon but I don’t’ find it a particular rewarding game. I tried very hard but in both my recent games the moment I overextended myself was the moment that somebody else stepped in and crushed me like a bug. It would have been better for me to consolidate power carefully and play a very defensive game instead, which is not the way that Starcraft (the video game at least) should be played.
The boargame I’ve been playing as of late is Starcraft. We joke that there is little reason to actually be playing the board game when we could just be playing the video game, but it’s a different sort of camaraderie when you have a room full of trash talking nerds.
Starcraft is definitely one of those ‘boy’ games. It’s complicated and focuses entirely on competition and war. The game plays…reasonably okay. It is too complex to be what I would call a beer and pretzels game. The game requires you to plan out what you’re going to do during the next turn AND in reverse order. The order that you give first will be your final action. The combat is the same, where you have cards that determine the strength of your unit but only if the card matches the figure. But if you don’t have the correct cards in your hand for a fight, you could have what appears to be a powerful unit who gets beaten by an inferior unit and there isn’t much you can do about it.
It’s…not entirely intuitive but after playing it a few times now, it makes sense.
The problem with Starcraft is that nothing ever feels intuitive. From placing orders to building to fighting, nothing ever feels confident, for lack of a better word. I really have no idea if my plans will work (my orders), or I build too much in one area forgetting about another crucial area or I lose fights which I figure I should win.
I guess Starcraft could technically be the most complex beer and pretzels game out there because I find that there isn’t really much I can do to ensure my victory. I didn’t feel that anybody else could either, other than very obvious, very simple tactics (like people who needed to win by holding X number of areas and nobody attacked them for the entire game).
Starcraft is also a game that punishes you for screwing up. One player amassed a huge army but forgot to buy a transport. His warmachine was immediately brought to a halt and it allowed the other player to survive. What was worse was that we thought that the game might come to an end that round, so he would never even bring his forces to bear, which would have sucked.
Ultimately, Starcraft is a fine way to pass an afternoon but I don’t’ find it a particular rewarding game. I tried very hard but in both my recent games the moment I overextended myself was the moment that somebody else stepped in and crushed me like a bug. It would have been better for me to consolidate power carefully and play a very defensive game instead, which is not the way that Starcraft (the video game at least) should be played.
Monday, March 2, 2009
Saga System
Sometimes, I don’t get gamers. There are certain and rare systems that come out that are excellent, yet they do not catch on. Why, I wonder is this?
One of those systems was the Saga System. Like all systems, it was not perfect but it was one of the better ones out there. It was fast and simple, which most games claim but it’s a damn dirty lie.
The Saga System was used by TSR for two of their games. Marvel Superheroes and Dragonlance. It was a very novel attempt. I have played the Marvel Superhero version of Saga and read about the Dragonlance version.
The Saga system used cards, not dice, as it’s method of resolution. I’ve seen a handful of card systems and they are solidly okay. Castle Falkenstein, a great setting, used cards, but the card value was a bit wonky. In that game, if the suite of the card matched your action (Hearts for social for example) you would use the full value of the card. If not, then you would only add one. The cheap things about Castle Falkenstein was that you could pitch in as many cards as needed, so if you had a hand of 4 crap cards, you could attempt an action, just to pitch all 4 cards and then re-draw a full hand, thus circumventing the limit of your mitt of cards.
The Saga system was better but a bit monty haul, because it went the other direction. A card is worth it’s base value, no matter the suite. You would add Stat (or Power) and the value of the card and try to get over a difficulty number. Marvel went a bit nuts because the stat values varied so much. A 1 was pretty weak. 10 was max human. And beyond that? Well Hulk had a 20 Strength but you could go up to 30 or higher for beings such as Galactus.
Now if the suite of the cards matched your action, then you would get a Trump, which is to say, you could draw the top card on the deck and add that to your value. If that card was the same suite, you would Trump again. There was no limit to the amount of Trumps you could do, but eventually it would stop (cuz you would eventually pull a non-suite appropriate card).
I cannot express to you how much fun it was to play this system, as superheroes. The card system was actually fun to use, rather than dice, which are not fun but functional. The math was relatively easy and quick. Heroes could try to stack the odds in their favour by holding onto an appropriate attack relevant suite for later. By the time combat hit, you were blurring through cards like crazy.
Did I mention that there were five suites to the Marvel system? Well the first four just matched the four stats: Strength, Agility, Intellect and Willpower. As you can imagine, these four stats governed everything, including your powers (so all powers had to be attached to one of those stats). The only flaw here is that your Strength could be used to hit, for damage and to resist damage. (I hate mechanics which allow one ‘godstat’).
So what’s the 5th suite? In Marvel it was the Doom suite (for Dr. Doom, duh). The Doom suite was a great mechanic. You could add the numbers just like normal, but the Doom suite never associated itself to any action, so it never Trumped. Furthermore, the GM took the Doom card and formed a hand of cards with it, using it to increase the difficulty of a particular action. A wonderful mechanic (and it gets better but I’ll get to that).
There is a further component to the Saga card system. They call it Edge and Hand Size. Every character has an Edge, representing how skilled they are. 1 is a wiener. 2-3 is your average character. 4 is Captain America. It can get as high as 6 but they didn’t give any examples of anybody that high.
Your Edge represents two things. First, you add two to your Edge and that’s your hand size (more on that later). Second, you can use any card that’s equal to or lower than your Edge in addition to whatever card you ‘actually’ use. Thus with a 3 Edge, you can add your crap 1-3 cards into a challenge in addition to the card that you actually play. Very few games handle ‘experience’ in such as brilliant and easy fashion. Captain America, has a high Edge because he’s got more experience than anybody else. Thus, he can win over others because if he had good and bad cards, they all work out.
Back to the hand size, there is more to it than just more cards. See when your character is hit and takes damage, you have to discard a number of cards at least equal to the damage. So if you took 8 damage and had 9 a 4, a 3 and a 1 you have two choices. Discard the 9 which temporary reduces your hand size to 3 cards and be done with it. Or discard the 4, 3 and the 1 (which equal 8) and temporary reduces your hand size to 1. In this way, the player can make the decision on how powerful the hit actually becomes, based on the cards in their hand at the time. And more experienced heroes, who have a higher Edge and thus a higher hand size, know how to roll with the blow better than other, less experienced heroes.
Oh and one more neat thing about discarding cards due to damage: If you happen to discard a Doom card in that process…well…the GM can say that something bad happened to your character, such as a broken leg or something more serious. If say you discarded a Doom card as your final card (which would normally KO you), the GM might decide to say that you are now actually dying.
Overall the system works extremely well and is fun, as I said before. There are problems with the system but they are fairly trivial and would be easy enough to fix. We once had a bird-girl who had a ranged attack that would shoot her feathers out. She once Trumped so many times she could have wounded The Hulk or Galactus with her attack. This was more of a once in a lifetime sorta thing but it can happen, so it would be something to watch for.
Now I’ve read some reviews on the failed attempt to bring the Saga system to D&D. I’m sad to say that it failed but it did. Players, I guess, just couldn’t accept that much of a departure from regular D&D. I can understand the loosy-goosy feel to the cards, rather than the dice. With crap cards and no appropriate suites, a high stat doesn’t really amount for much. That was the one ‘big’ flaw in that if you’re a smashy character (and who isn’t in a superhero game) and you can’t get your favoured suite, you would sit there and not be able to do much in a fight.
That being said, with the new D&D 4th edition, there is a big push to allow each and every character to use different stats for their powers. If such a concept were applied to the Dragonlance version, that could have been very cool. The Dragonlance version had 8 stats (2 for each suite I believe) and thus you open up a lot of neat potential combos. Perhaps you have a Strength Maneuver, an Intellect Maneuver and a Resolve Maneuver. This would open your combat up to use 3 of the 4 suites available to you. If you keep getting Strength cards, keep using the Strength Maneuver. But when you get an Intellect card, you can switch off to that Maneuver if you like.
But alas, I believe that it was just use Strength or Agility to hit. If you get the right cards to Trump, then great. If not, then oh well, you suck this fight (that’s not exactly true, a high non-aligned suite card works just fine, but players LOVE to Trump).
Magic was a little different and there was no equipment if the review is to be believed and I think that had something to do with how the game failed. Going from the traditional d20 world to something altogether different and not having kewl stuff like equipment and an unfamiliar magic system spelt it’s doom. (Personally, I can’t figure out why they wouldn’t have had equipment).
The feel of a game system is important. The Saga system was one of those rare gems but it has a definite fast paced feel to it. That’s why it was exciting in a superhero game but I can see how it would be difficult to get it in a D&D style game. Something about cards just has a different quality to them. Cards to be associated with many other things, particularly a host of card games. Using them as your random mechanic makes for a very different game. There is less randomness to it, because if you have a stat of 8 and your best card is an 8, your best ‘roll’ is a 16. A Trump adds some measure of randomness but it’s not quite the same as a randomly rolled die. At the same time, you also tend to know when you’re going to suck in the next encounter, because if you have nothing but garbage in your hand and nothing that Trumps for the situation, you’re going to feel that you’re being screwed or punished by your lousy hand. Strangely enough, I for one would much rather know that I suck in advance than to suck after I’ve rolled that die. If I’m going to suck, at the very least it prevents me from making crazy promises that “nobody’ll get hurt on my watch!” or something to that effect.
Still, if you can part with your dice, there is something that’s quite magically about how the Saga system handles pretty much everything and with relative ease. Too bad it’s effectively dead. =(
One of those systems was the Saga System. Like all systems, it was not perfect but it was one of the better ones out there. It was fast and simple, which most games claim but it’s a damn dirty lie.
The Saga System was used by TSR for two of their games. Marvel Superheroes and Dragonlance. It was a very novel attempt. I have played the Marvel Superhero version of Saga and read about the Dragonlance version.
The Saga system used cards, not dice, as it’s method of resolution. I’ve seen a handful of card systems and they are solidly okay. Castle Falkenstein, a great setting, used cards, but the card value was a bit wonky. In that game, if the suite of the card matched your action (Hearts for social for example) you would use the full value of the card. If not, then you would only add one. The cheap things about Castle Falkenstein was that you could pitch in as many cards as needed, so if you had a hand of 4 crap cards, you could attempt an action, just to pitch all 4 cards and then re-draw a full hand, thus circumventing the limit of your mitt of cards.
The Saga system was better but a bit monty haul, because it went the other direction. A card is worth it’s base value, no matter the suite. You would add Stat (or Power) and the value of the card and try to get over a difficulty number. Marvel went a bit nuts because the stat values varied so much. A 1 was pretty weak. 10 was max human. And beyond that? Well Hulk had a 20 Strength but you could go up to 30 or higher for beings such as Galactus.
Now if the suite of the cards matched your action, then you would get a Trump, which is to say, you could draw the top card on the deck and add that to your value. If that card was the same suite, you would Trump again. There was no limit to the amount of Trumps you could do, but eventually it would stop (cuz you would eventually pull a non-suite appropriate card).
I cannot express to you how much fun it was to play this system, as superheroes. The card system was actually fun to use, rather than dice, which are not fun but functional. The math was relatively easy and quick. Heroes could try to stack the odds in their favour by holding onto an appropriate attack relevant suite for later. By the time combat hit, you were blurring through cards like crazy.
Did I mention that there were five suites to the Marvel system? Well the first four just matched the four stats: Strength, Agility, Intellect and Willpower. As you can imagine, these four stats governed everything, including your powers (so all powers had to be attached to one of those stats). The only flaw here is that your Strength could be used to hit, for damage and to resist damage. (I hate mechanics which allow one ‘godstat’).
So what’s the 5th suite? In Marvel it was the Doom suite (for Dr. Doom, duh). The Doom suite was a great mechanic. You could add the numbers just like normal, but the Doom suite never associated itself to any action, so it never Trumped. Furthermore, the GM took the Doom card and formed a hand of cards with it, using it to increase the difficulty of a particular action. A wonderful mechanic (and it gets better but I’ll get to that).
There is a further component to the Saga card system. They call it Edge and Hand Size. Every character has an Edge, representing how skilled they are. 1 is a wiener. 2-3 is your average character. 4 is Captain America. It can get as high as 6 but they didn’t give any examples of anybody that high.
Your Edge represents two things. First, you add two to your Edge and that’s your hand size (more on that later). Second, you can use any card that’s equal to or lower than your Edge in addition to whatever card you ‘actually’ use. Thus with a 3 Edge, you can add your crap 1-3 cards into a challenge in addition to the card that you actually play. Very few games handle ‘experience’ in such as brilliant and easy fashion. Captain America, has a high Edge because he’s got more experience than anybody else. Thus, he can win over others because if he had good and bad cards, they all work out.
Back to the hand size, there is more to it than just more cards. See when your character is hit and takes damage, you have to discard a number of cards at least equal to the damage. So if you took 8 damage and had 9 a 4, a 3 and a 1 you have two choices. Discard the 9 which temporary reduces your hand size to 3 cards and be done with it. Or discard the 4, 3 and the 1 (which equal 8) and temporary reduces your hand size to 1. In this way, the player can make the decision on how powerful the hit actually becomes, based on the cards in their hand at the time. And more experienced heroes, who have a higher Edge and thus a higher hand size, know how to roll with the blow better than other, less experienced heroes.
Oh and one more neat thing about discarding cards due to damage: If you happen to discard a Doom card in that process…well…the GM can say that something bad happened to your character, such as a broken leg or something more serious. If say you discarded a Doom card as your final card (which would normally KO you), the GM might decide to say that you are now actually dying.
Overall the system works extremely well and is fun, as I said before. There are problems with the system but they are fairly trivial and would be easy enough to fix. We once had a bird-girl who had a ranged attack that would shoot her feathers out. She once Trumped so many times she could have wounded The Hulk or Galactus with her attack. This was more of a once in a lifetime sorta thing but it can happen, so it would be something to watch for.
Now I’ve read some reviews on the failed attempt to bring the Saga system to D&D. I’m sad to say that it failed but it did. Players, I guess, just couldn’t accept that much of a departure from regular D&D. I can understand the loosy-goosy feel to the cards, rather than the dice. With crap cards and no appropriate suites, a high stat doesn’t really amount for much. That was the one ‘big’ flaw in that if you’re a smashy character (and who isn’t in a superhero game) and you can’t get your favoured suite, you would sit there and not be able to do much in a fight.
That being said, with the new D&D 4th edition, there is a big push to allow each and every character to use different stats for their powers. If such a concept were applied to the Dragonlance version, that could have been very cool. The Dragonlance version had 8 stats (2 for each suite I believe) and thus you open up a lot of neat potential combos. Perhaps you have a Strength Maneuver, an Intellect Maneuver and a Resolve Maneuver. This would open your combat up to use 3 of the 4 suites available to you. If you keep getting Strength cards, keep using the Strength Maneuver. But when you get an Intellect card, you can switch off to that Maneuver if you like.
But alas, I believe that it was just use Strength or Agility to hit. If you get the right cards to Trump, then great. If not, then oh well, you suck this fight (that’s not exactly true, a high non-aligned suite card works just fine, but players LOVE to Trump).
Magic was a little different and there was no equipment if the review is to be believed and I think that had something to do with how the game failed. Going from the traditional d20 world to something altogether different and not having kewl stuff like equipment and an unfamiliar magic system spelt it’s doom. (Personally, I can’t figure out why they wouldn’t have had equipment).
The feel of a game system is important. The Saga system was one of those rare gems but it has a definite fast paced feel to it. That’s why it was exciting in a superhero game but I can see how it would be difficult to get it in a D&D style game. Something about cards just has a different quality to them. Cards to be associated with many other things, particularly a host of card games. Using them as your random mechanic makes for a very different game. There is less randomness to it, because if you have a stat of 8 and your best card is an 8, your best ‘roll’ is a 16. A Trump adds some measure of randomness but it’s not quite the same as a randomly rolled die. At the same time, you also tend to know when you’re going to suck in the next encounter, because if you have nothing but garbage in your hand and nothing that Trumps for the situation, you’re going to feel that you’re being screwed or punished by your lousy hand. Strangely enough, I for one would much rather know that I suck in advance than to suck after I’ve rolled that die. If I’m going to suck, at the very least it prevents me from making crazy promises that “nobody’ll get hurt on my watch!” or something to that effect.
Still, if you can part with your dice, there is something that’s quite magically about how the Saga system handles pretty much everything and with relative ease. Too bad it’s effectively dead. =(
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
The Hour is Late
Midnight is my new favourite setting for D&D. It stands above all others for it’s sheer level of gritty and grim flavour.
I’ve used the term, it’s like Lord of the Rings, when describing it to other players, only that the bad guy has won. And that’s not an entirely untruthful statement.
In Midnight you have a god of evil, Izrador, who was kicked out of Heaven. He fell to earth (Aryth) and in doing so, he trapped the world in a shell. There is no planar travel in Midnight because of this. And this has all sorts of ramifications.
First, there are no clerics, so quick healing is a thing of the past. Well, that’s not true. See there IS one god who is still listening to the prayers of the faithful. Only problem is, he’s the big bad guy who’s enslaved the world.
Second, did I just mention the enslaving the world? Because the terrible god has WON. Well, almost won. His victory is a sure bet. He’s beaten the humans and is mopping up the dwarves and is trying to figure out a way into the defences of the elves. The world is pretty much in dire straights. The humans are ‘occupied’ but they give a hidden token resistance. But the armies of the Shadow (Izrador) aren’t stupid. Well the orcs might be. But the clerics, called Legates, are cunning. Killing the people who act against you makes them a martyr. So you kill all the innocent people around that rebel. You outlaw weapons and travel and all sorts of regular things that other D&D groups take for granted.
Third: Since you’ve revamped how clerics work, you might as well revamp Wizards/Sorcerers. They are know called Channelers and they summon spell energy, mostly from themselves but sometimes from a magic rich area. They use that spell energy to fuel their spells. Quite simply really. But they also greatly limited combat spells. Does that make Channelers useless? Not really. Since magic is so rare, there are few defences against it, other than a lucky saving throw. But now trivial spells like Obscuring Mist and Ghost Sound become huge because the common man (good or evil) doesn’t really know how to deal with arcane things like that.
Fourth: Since there is no planar travel, they could cut out a lot of weird things and spells that circumvent adventures, such as teleporting and the like.
Fifth: Since there is no planar travel, death becomes quite the problem. No where for spirits to go you see. Thus…the dead will often rise. These dead are well constructed, remaining human at first, but quickly devolving into…well…zombie horror. Called the Fell, a GM can use this to great effect. Friends who are ‘wounded’ in combat who hide that they were killed. A zombie apocalypse style game. A lot is possible here.
There are other retooling to how the world works. The main book is quite detailed and gives you lots to work with, although a new campaign can be a little daunting.
But a player recently mentioned, it’s not like Lord of the Rings. It’s much darker. I hadn’t considered that but I realized, that he’s correct. Lord of the Rings, more so, in my opinion, is like the Aliens of the fantasy story. It’s an intense, we’re all gonna die around that next corner, how are we gonna get out of this story. The heroes are up against insurmountable odds. Sauron, if they ever met him, would be unstoppable (which technically he isn’t cuz if you read some of the other works, he started as a 2nd rate chump and he did technically get ‘pwned’ by a human in one of his first outings). Still Sauron is given the appearance that he is pure and inevitable evil.
But as much as LotR’s is about the grim struggle against evil, it’s also about great hope. There are huge stirring speeches, the heroes are some of the toughest beings on the planet and they have many allies.
Midnight, therefore, is like LotR’s but without the hope. It’s a world of despair. It’s much easier to lie down and let the forces of Shadow just abuse your life and those around you. You rise up for your own reasons, but a good GM will not make your life easy.
Since it’s become my favourite D&D setting, I’m very disappointed that the company that created it, Fantasy Flight Games, has seemingly ditched it. There is no mention of it on their new website and no more forum. I think that they still try to sell the books.
I get it. Midnight was no longer selling. It hadn’t sold well in general, I suspect, but it did manage to get FFG’s foot in the door. But it gave them a name. People who read it must have at least been impressed with it and would consider other games from FFG.
It’s a shame but I guess these things happen. Settings only have so much time to be profitable it seems. You either have to keep the setting alive with lots of supplements to keep it fresh or ditch it. But I guess to no longer even mention it on their website or not to give it a shrine, I guess it just hits me, as a hopeful game designer. That all things will come to pass. It’s like trying to watch Babylon 5 again. It was a great show in it’s day. But all things have an energy to them. A life that we as the consumer/audience gives it. Therefore, when it’s current, there is a level of excitement that is palpable. When it’s old, very rarely is there anybody around to discuss it and few are eager to marvel over it again. So sadly, I must concede that Midnight has lost its newness. I guess it’s just odd because I only just discovered it and started running it. But there are no nerds with which to ‘get my nerd on’ with.
Maybe, I’ll have to start up the Dead Role Playing Society. We can dress up, gather once a month eating finger food and bring a game of the past that is dear to our heart for discussion. Maybe…
I’ve used the term, it’s like Lord of the Rings, when describing it to other players, only that the bad guy has won. And that’s not an entirely untruthful statement.
In Midnight you have a god of evil, Izrador, who was kicked out of Heaven. He fell to earth (Aryth) and in doing so, he trapped the world in a shell. There is no planar travel in Midnight because of this. And this has all sorts of ramifications.
First, there are no clerics, so quick healing is a thing of the past. Well, that’s not true. See there IS one god who is still listening to the prayers of the faithful. Only problem is, he’s the big bad guy who’s enslaved the world.
Second, did I just mention the enslaving the world? Because the terrible god has WON. Well, almost won. His victory is a sure bet. He’s beaten the humans and is mopping up the dwarves and is trying to figure out a way into the defences of the elves. The world is pretty much in dire straights. The humans are ‘occupied’ but they give a hidden token resistance. But the armies of the Shadow (Izrador) aren’t stupid. Well the orcs might be. But the clerics, called Legates, are cunning. Killing the people who act against you makes them a martyr. So you kill all the innocent people around that rebel. You outlaw weapons and travel and all sorts of regular things that other D&D groups take for granted.
Third: Since you’ve revamped how clerics work, you might as well revamp Wizards/Sorcerers. They are know called Channelers and they summon spell energy, mostly from themselves but sometimes from a magic rich area. They use that spell energy to fuel their spells. Quite simply really. But they also greatly limited combat spells. Does that make Channelers useless? Not really. Since magic is so rare, there are few defences against it, other than a lucky saving throw. But now trivial spells like Obscuring Mist and Ghost Sound become huge because the common man (good or evil) doesn’t really know how to deal with arcane things like that.
Fourth: Since there is no planar travel, they could cut out a lot of weird things and spells that circumvent adventures, such as teleporting and the like.
Fifth: Since there is no planar travel, death becomes quite the problem. No where for spirits to go you see. Thus…the dead will often rise. These dead are well constructed, remaining human at first, but quickly devolving into…well…zombie horror. Called the Fell, a GM can use this to great effect. Friends who are ‘wounded’ in combat who hide that they were killed. A zombie apocalypse style game. A lot is possible here.
There are other retooling to how the world works. The main book is quite detailed and gives you lots to work with, although a new campaign can be a little daunting.
But a player recently mentioned, it’s not like Lord of the Rings. It’s much darker. I hadn’t considered that but I realized, that he’s correct. Lord of the Rings, more so, in my opinion, is like the Aliens of the fantasy story. It’s an intense, we’re all gonna die around that next corner, how are we gonna get out of this story. The heroes are up against insurmountable odds. Sauron, if they ever met him, would be unstoppable (which technically he isn’t cuz if you read some of the other works, he started as a 2nd rate chump and he did technically get ‘pwned’ by a human in one of his first outings). Still Sauron is given the appearance that he is pure and inevitable evil.
But as much as LotR’s is about the grim struggle against evil, it’s also about great hope. There are huge stirring speeches, the heroes are some of the toughest beings on the planet and they have many allies.
Midnight, therefore, is like LotR’s but without the hope. It’s a world of despair. It’s much easier to lie down and let the forces of Shadow just abuse your life and those around you. You rise up for your own reasons, but a good GM will not make your life easy.
Since it’s become my favourite D&D setting, I’m very disappointed that the company that created it, Fantasy Flight Games, has seemingly ditched it. There is no mention of it on their new website and no more forum. I think that they still try to sell the books.
I get it. Midnight was no longer selling. It hadn’t sold well in general, I suspect, but it did manage to get FFG’s foot in the door. But it gave them a name. People who read it must have at least been impressed with it and would consider other games from FFG.
It’s a shame but I guess these things happen. Settings only have so much time to be profitable it seems. You either have to keep the setting alive with lots of supplements to keep it fresh or ditch it. But I guess to no longer even mention it on their website or not to give it a shrine, I guess it just hits me, as a hopeful game designer. That all things will come to pass. It’s like trying to watch Babylon 5 again. It was a great show in it’s day. But all things have an energy to them. A life that we as the consumer/audience gives it. Therefore, when it’s current, there is a level of excitement that is palpable. When it’s old, very rarely is there anybody around to discuss it and few are eager to marvel over it again. So sadly, I must concede that Midnight has lost its newness. I guess it’s just odd because I only just discovered it and started running it. But there are no nerds with which to ‘get my nerd on’ with.
Maybe, I’ll have to start up the Dead Role Playing Society. We can dress up, gather once a month eating finger food and bring a game of the past that is dear to our heart for discussion. Maybe…
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Android - Living up to the hype...
Taken for what it is, Android is a powerful and at times, moving game. And for that, it lives up to the hype that Fantasy Flight Games suggests and my own anticipation.
It's a long game, but...you've got time to play it. Most games give you one or two things you can do during your turn, but Android allows you several actions on your turn. So while you have to plot your turn out, you don't feel entirely rushed. You think up a strategy and try to get it done.
Players need to divide their actions between focusing on the 'main plot' which is trying to determine who is the killer and/or the conspiracy, or focus on their own personal plots, which are often intense life dramas, such as dealing with being owned by a company, being on the take from the mafia or your clone sisters being threatened. Strangely enough, your final focus can be to make others fail in their personal plots, which was largely overlooked.
The first game played out very well. The single design flaw is that the personal plots are so important (*) that a player will fight tooth and nail to try to get them to be completed in a positive fashion. * When I said 'important' I meant in a two fold fashion. One they are important to get victory points. Getting your personal plots can be as rich in VPs as figuring out who was the murderer. But they are also important because very quickly, you get very attached to the character you're playing. The stories are very well written and the 'story penalty' stings. For example, I was playing an actual Android. A human priest was kidnapped by human terrorists who hate Androids. My plots gave me an option (not everybody gets these, most players are forced to deal with the good or bad due to how much attention they give them). I could go and murder the human terrorists, but that breaks my duty to why I was created (Thou Shalt Not Kill) or I can let the priest die and obey the company. The good ending is to try to save the priest but it's not that easy. After killing the human terrorists, the plot can end VERY badly because I've broken one of my prime directives. So it's a very important question. The easy road was to let the priest die and deal with that.
The flaw, as I said, is that players will fight tooth and nail to make positive things happen to their characters, typically in a role playing game. Thus, as you quickly grow attached to these board game characters, you want them to all have happy endings. And because these happy endings are worth VP's, unless other players make it a strategy to fuck you over, I think that 90% of the personal plots will end well for the players. I think that if one player focuses on trying to ruin the other player's lives, they'll only ruin one other player (it's very hard to try to ruin everybody). Therefore the perfect balance would be if everybody focused 1/3 of their time to their personal plots, 1/3 of their time to solving the crime and 1/3 of their time to ruining the another player's personal plots, then you would have a perfect game whose outcome would be truly unpredictable and exciting.
Still, the flaw is extremely minor. As we played the game, we found our niche. Jackie tried to solve the conspiracy. Cori and I focused on the crime. Rob focused at first on the crime and conspiracy but wanted a happy ending for his 2nd personal plot of the game, he focused greatly on that for the 2nd half of the game and all but abandoned the 'main plot'.
By the end of it, we all had our personal stories to tell. Cori was the only one who had a bad ending (technically it was still a Happy Ending but it was a low level Happy Ending). Jackie has solved the Conspiracy and gotten a lot of VP's for that but I squeaked out a 'win' (*) by getting my happy endings, solving the murder and getting enough favor tokens from the company that I was built from. * The first board game with inexperienced players is ALWAYS a muligan!
What was also fascinating about the game, is that even after the game, it held out imaginations. The murderered man was some rich 'dude'. The murderer was the rich son of the company that I worked for. Cori surmissed that this rich son, Thomas Haas, was obviously gay. But that Mr. Willians, his lover, was going to out him. Being the son of a massive company who is trying to patent Androids (like me) that just wouldn't do. So Haas killed his lover. Take it further, one of the Androids, Eve (a pleasure model) is in the NAPD at the start of the game. So clearly Haas tried to immediately place the blame on a pleasure 'droid'. However during the course of the game, Jackie proved that Jinteki (the big opposed corp) was part of the conspiracy. So clearly Haas was running independent of his mother, murdering Mr. Williams and allowing his own mother's company to take the blame via the pleasure 'droid'. And he must have had contacts with Jinteki because they somehow manipulated Human's First to kidnap the Father (as part of my above plot), because I was closing in on Thomas Haas. They figured by kidnapping and killing the father, I would be affected enough to give up. Little did they anticipate that I would be willing to cast aside my programming and kill to save the Father, which spurned me to return to my work and find the evidence against Thomas Haas. I can only imagine the Haas-Bioriod company's reaction to my discovering that the the son of the CEO was responsible. In one case, the company has been shamed by the actions of their human spawn. On the other, the company has been redemned due to the actions of their created Android. Financial success over personal disgrace. How appropriate to the dark future.
That's just the story that Cori started and I finished in my head. But tell me of another board game that lets us, as players, weave that story. Things just fell so well into place. It's kinda eerie.
Android is definitely a game I must play again. And again. It's hard to explain well and it takes a LONG time to play, but it's one of the more rewarding games I've played in a long, long time.
Hats off to Fantasy Flight Games for making Android.
It's a long game, but...you've got time to play it. Most games give you one or two things you can do during your turn, but Android allows you several actions on your turn. So while you have to plot your turn out, you don't feel entirely rushed. You think up a strategy and try to get it done.
Players need to divide their actions between focusing on the 'main plot' which is trying to determine who is the killer and/or the conspiracy, or focus on their own personal plots, which are often intense life dramas, such as dealing with being owned by a company, being on the take from the mafia or your clone sisters being threatened. Strangely enough, your final focus can be to make others fail in their personal plots, which was largely overlooked.
The first game played out very well. The single design flaw is that the personal plots are so important (*) that a player will fight tooth and nail to try to get them to be completed in a positive fashion. * When I said 'important' I meant in a two fold fashion. One they are important to get victory points. Getting your personal plots can be as rich in VPs as figuring out who was the murderer. But they are also important because very quickly, you get very attached to the character you're playing. The stories are very well written and the 'story penalty' stings. For example, I was playing an actual Android. A human priest was kidnapped by human terrorists who hate Androids. My plots gave me an option (not everybody gets these, most players are forced to deal with the good or bad due to how much attention they give them). I could go and murder the human terrorists, but that breaks my duty to why I was created (Thou Shalt Not Kill) or I can let the priest die and obey the company. The good ending is to try to save the priest but it's not that easy. After killing the human terrorists, the plot can end VERY badly because I've broken one of my prime directives. So it's a very important question. The easy road was to let the priest die and deal with that.
The flaw, as I said, is that players will fight tooth and nail to make positive things happen to their characters, typically in a role playing game. Thus, as you quickly grow attached to these board game characters, you want them to all have happy endings. And because these happy endings are worth VP's, unless other players make it a strategy to fuck you over, I think that 90% of the personal plots will end well for the players. I think that if one player focuses on trying to ruin the other player's lives, they'll only ruin one other player (it's very hard to try to ruin everybody). Therefore the perfect balance would be if everybody focused 1/3 of their time to their personal plots, 1/3 of their time to solving the crime and 1/3 of their time to ruining the another player's personal plots, then you would have a perfect game whose outcome would be truly unpredictable and exciting.
Still, the flaw is extremely minor. As we played the game, we found our niche. Jackie tried to solve the conspiracy. Cori and I focused on the crime. Rob focused at first on the crime and conspiracy but wanted a happy ending for his 2nd personal plot of the game, he focused greatly on that for the 2nd half of the game and all but abandoned the 'main plot'.
By the end of it, we all had our personal stories to tell. Cori was the only one who had a bad ending (technically it was still a Happy Ending but it was a low level Happy Ending). Jackie has solved the Conspiracy and gotten a lot of VP's for that but I squeaked out a 'win' (*) by getting my happy endings, solving the murder and getting enough favor tokens from the company that I was built from. * The first board game with inexperienced players is ALWAYS a muligan!
What was also fascinating about the game, is that even after the game, it held out imaginations. The murderered man was some rich 'dude'. The murderer was the rich son of the company that I worked for. Cori surmissed that this rich son, Thomas Haas, was obviously gay. But that Mr. Willians, his lover, was going to out him. Being the son of a massive company who is trying to patent Androids (like me) that just wouldn't do. So Haas killed his lover. Take it further, one of the Androids, Eve (a pleasure model) is in the NAPD at the start of the game. So clearly Haas tried to immediately place the blame on a pleasure 'droid'. However during the course of the game, Jackie proved that Jinteki (the big opposed corp) was part of the conspiracy. So clearly Haas was running independent of his mother, murdering Mr. Williams and allowing his own mother's company to take the blame via the pleasure 'droid'. And he must have had contacts with Jinteki because they somehow manipulated Human's First to kidnap the Father (as part of my above plot), because I was closing in on Thomas Haas. They figured by kidnapping and killing the father, I would be affected enough to give up. Little did they anticipate that I would be willing to cast aside my programming and kill to save the Father, which spurned me to return to my work and find the evidence against Thomas Haas. I can only imagine the Haas-Bioriod company's reaction to my discovering that the the son of the CEO was responsible. In one case, the company has been shamed by the actions of their human spawn. On the other, the company has been redemned due to the actions of their created Android. Financial success over personal disgrace. How appropriate to the dark future.
That's just the story that Cori started and I finished in my head. But tell me of another board game that lets us, as players, weave that story. Things just fell so well into place. It's kinda eerie.
Android is definitely a game I must play again. And again. It's hard to explain well and it takes a LONG time to play, but it's one of the more rewarding games I've played in a long, long time.
Hats off to Fantasy Flight Games for making Android.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)