[IGC book project] The triad prepares

[Eero Tuovinen]

(Incidentally, my first thread on this forum; I had promised myself to come here with a game to be proud of... but, well, these babies actually need it.)

The Iron Game Chef publication got me to start this thread for thinking aloud about changes my games are needing for publication. I'm pretty good correspondent, but bad at taking the initiative, so I'll start this thread right now while I happen to have time. I'll begin with some disparate pondering, which hopefully focuses later on.

For the record, I wrote three games for the competition. While I'm the first to tell you that they are not very good as is, I believe they all have potential to be wonderful with the right corrections. The games are easiest to find through Walt Freitag's Index thread. They are respectively called "The Battle of the Frozen Waste", "The Fall of Atlantis and Dawn of Human History" and "The Brotherhood".

The first question is which games to include. I had naturally assumed that Mike'd want only one, but just now he indicated a wish to take them all. I'll not hold him to it if he comes to his senses; it's rather perilous to focus more on some than on others without good reason, especially as there is limited room in the book. If the wish persists I'm not one to deny him, though, provided I get three copies of the book ;) Right now I'd be inclined to choose the Brotherhood first, the Atlantis game second and the Battle last, based on how complete they can be made within the size limit and how good they are overall.

In any case some substantial rewriting is in order simply because I can do much better than this: the games were after all written during one week. This thread is for discussing necessary changes and for me to think aloud for the benefit of the editors. For your benefit a list of priorities from my current viewpoint; post what you will, but these are the things I'm thinking through right now:
1) The big mechanical fixes for playability.
2) Structural balance decisions on flavor text and mechanics.
3) Details.

As to the games themselves, I'll drag Mike's judgements in here for starting points. He judges good, though I'd have chosen completely different winners. Color against mechanics, I guess. I'll comment on Mike's comments, not to disapprove, but to reflect outside views and focus for redevelopment.

The Battle of the Frozen Waste - the game of tolkienist battle

The subtitle is more of a joke, really. Have to lose it.

The main problems with the BFW are twofold: it's mechanics are complex and have to be playtested if borderline playability is the goal, and there's some infernally ugly fast fixes in there. Major streamlining is indicated, and probably the stone economy has to be fixed based on playtest results. The latter phase has to be revamped and streamlined, too many individual rulings. Readability can be enchanced by a couple of orders of magnitudes, as well, by restructuring.

As for future plans, I'm currently envisioning BFW as a seed for a little more general, episodic game of fantasy storytelling. The hook'd be Fighting Fantasy style model, with a game book the players follow. Imagine some dozen scenarios with overlapping mechanics, to be played in certain order based on individual results. An abstract war game campaign, really, but with a book, free details, complete replayability and heavy narrativist dosage. As you can see, this has no bearing on the current issue, but had to be said anyway: my inclinations for future development might creep in at an inopportune moment.

Style: I haven't read the Fire and Ice novels, but it seems from what I know of them that these may have been an influence in addition to the explicit Tolkien influence. The system seems like a colorful version of Universalis (and the Judges wonder if they're being pandered to).

I read the books about two months ago, and certainly grogged the similarity after writing the premise. The actual details are however completely synthetic: I just followed the ingredients and standard post-tolkienist formulae. Not completely serious, this one: A Menorah of Salvation named Santalabra?

I didn't recognize Universalis. Still, it was almost comical how I thought that I had these great system ideas just to realize after writing them that both Co9C and Wyrd have very similar bits.

Estimated Effectiveness in Play: Took a while to discover meta-conflicts, but when that rule is considered, a lot falls into place – one can see how the fuzzy stuff is all handled. It seems added on late, however, and there are what seem to be older rules about things like voting and the like that seem contradictory.

The rules about voting are in there for a reason, although not one everyone would agree to. If challenges are taken as valid ways of resolving everything their trivial use is sanctified. This will free gamist players (this is a gamist game, essentially) to build conflicts without corresponding story concequenses, drifting the game further into boardgameland. In Universalis peer pressure is used, but that wasn't enough for me. I'll think it over and clarify wordings.

The step by step narration and conflict resulting in something like one of those comedy sportz games where the players keep introducing facts that contradict each other seems pretty cool. Especially powerful is how stones that are used to disagree with narration go to the Ambassador, giving strong incentive for players to play well to each other, and to accept narration. In fact, I wonder if it's too powerful, and might make conflicts non-existent. Which would really throw off the balance of play. Why have conflicts when you can be narrating advantage stones?

This is the big question mark, and needs playtesting and some slight changes to correct. In the text I assume that as the Ambassador is a player like any other, the other players are willing to take some risk of his power growing in exhange for personal sway over the story details. I'll probably include some more elaborate character creation to ensure that the players have some stake in in-game matters.

The death rule seems kinda fuzzy. We know when characters are eligible to die, but is it otherwise just the result of some narrated stone? Similarly, the Ambassador healing rule is somewhat unclear – though I'm not sure how necessary it is in any case. The most worrying thing is that the balance of the game might just fall apart in the final battle – it's very hard to tell without actually playing, however.

The death rules should impart that there is no death rule. Or rather, there is a rule that characters can only be affected by conflicts if they are participating (or there should be; might be I forgot to say it aloud). As a character is put to danger of death when he has enough wounds, and being in danger of death means inability to participate, a character cannot die in the waiting phase. The battle is a different thing altogether. If preferred, a character can be narrated dead in the waiting, but the player of said character has to agree.

The idea is that the character is bedridden or otherwise unable to affect the course of events, and the player has to concoct some way to save him. The Ambassador healing rule should be quite useful if a player is unable to get the character to act otherwise.

The balance thing is, as indicated, the most problematic thing here. Things aren't helped by me patching the game very artificially. I spend twice the time I used in the two other games to write this, and still had to work in some pretty brutal rules to get it to some semblance of readiness.

Creative and Effective Incorporation of Terms
Island: not used.
Ice: The land of the ambassador is a frozen waste.
Dawn: The time of preparation for the battle.
Assault: a sample meaning for a stone – not a very strong use as it could easily be replaced by attack.

Assault was actually the Situation of the game. You know, the armies are preparing, and one will assault the other come morn. A small thing.

Completeness: A very complete game. The open mechanics allow definition of anything without being bland. For what sounds like a very short game, it's extremely complete. I'm not sure about the replayabilit, however; even with the suggestions, I think that in the end it's always going to be a desperate battle against impossible odds. Which is a limiting situation.

When writing the game I considered this a very complete tolkienist fantasy game, with the cabability of enacting any vaguely tolkienist high fantasy. As indicated above, I'm considering making this a considerably bigger episodic game, but it doesn't really need it for narrative breadth. I didn't write it clearly, but the game includes rules for a full story. Admittedly it'll need some tiny bit of structure, but that's what the artefact rules are there for.

Consider: Nothing stops players from playing in flashbacks the whole heroic story of how the armies have gathered and how their characters have ended up here in the Waste. They have all the tools for a delightfully fresh take on tolkienist linear fantasy: the last act starts, and then all the former ones are told. I don't consider this a limitation, but an emphasis: the battle is the point of anything happening before it, but what that happening is is not detailed.

If a player wants to go for the artefact victory he'll have to fulfill certain conditions that force some vague guidelines for the kind of story there is behind the battle. I'll probably be clearing these things up quite a bit, and giving rules for customizing the artefact conditions to customize the story.

Anyway, that's BFW for now. I'll have to take it apart structurewise and write it again, then playtest and write it a third time. Writing these notes has again really convinced me that the game is worthy of salvation (if I just get the fucking battle rules cleaned up), and I'm even considering scrapping the game book idea and letting the game stand as postmodern non-chronologic storytelling game. We'll see, for now the point is to clean it up for the publication.

Then for the Atlantis game: I'd like to take this moment to assure that I really don't have anything against Mike or his judging in this nitpicking. I just find it illuminating to discuss the particulars of my games.

The Fall of Atlantis and the Dawn of Human History

The problems of the Fall (apart from a clunky name) are largely in representation. The dice mechanic is highly suspect, too, but should be usable if numbers are got right. The players have to love dice, though.

The representation is a problem, for the game is actually a high Concept (am I using the word right/right word?) narrativist undertaking, and would in truth take easily to a 300 page hardcover a la WW or AEG. Background for the players to draw on. To get the points across I'll have to write really, really tight and strong text, and in english to boot.

Estimated Effectiveness in Play: The main problem I see is that the rules for donating dice and adding bonuses are very abstract. Basically give dice for whatever you want. This is mitigated by the fact that they aren't really there to buy success, so much as to build tension up before the roll (which seems pretty cool). But I think that the game would still operate better if there were some ideas about what should merit a reward, and mechanical handling of these things. If nobody donates any dice, then the game goes nowhere. I don't think that this will happen, but why not provide a bit more framework?

The reason for not providing framework is that the players are really exerting GM force by their decisions. They give dice for whatever they like, and that's that. I think I'll let them take away dice, too *<;)

Seriously, there could as well be some suggestions, as long as they aren't something the other players can use against one who breaks them. I will also clear the text up considerably, make task pyramids rather year pyramids (removed at end of year), and write it explicitly that the GM has to get dice from the players as well.

Vignettes could use more explanation, because this is what I think will keep the game being more of a epic RPG than just some odd game of Civ (that and begging for dice).

Indeed, vignettes and the dice are central, as well as GM judgements on situational bonuses. I'll probably write some example vignettes and give them more prominent room in the restructured version.

Why not make Colonization a full category on par with the other selections?

Mostly just emphasis. Colonization is on par, but is not enumerated because for most Atlanteans it's far from the optimal solution. In addition it's only one of the possible ways the players may respond to the Fall. Those were the reasons, and they are probably wrong; I'll add it and a couple of others as "later options" with the implication that they are not something one would want to do in the first year.

Disintegration would best be recorded as a drop of an Atlantean Stability score. Would make calculating delegation bonuses simpler.

True, but characters can challenge Disintegration with their administrative skills to stop Atlantis from breaking apart socially. For this reason it has to be similar to Ice and Assault.

Most importantly, unless I'm missing something staving off the eventual fall seems pretty easy to me as the game exists currently. Especially if there are lots of players. I sense that I may be misreading somehow.

It's assumed that the characters succeed in keeping the Fall at bay for some two hundred years or so. This is if they put all their effort to it. I see this as a feature, not a flaw: the fall is all the more painful if it happens after really trying to stave it off. If a shorter game is desired it's relatively easy to start with a higher Ice.

These critiques aside, I think the overall engine is really neat.

Thanks!

Creative and Effective Incorporation of Terms
Island: Atlantis is an island. Classic use.
Ice: the overarching problem of Atlantis, and therefore a potential endeavor of the PCs to defeat it.
Dawn: Purportedly about the start of human existence, this works as an exercise. But play is all about the fall.
Assault: another recurring problem that the PCs can address (human incursions).

Completeness: as noted, the game kind tails off. Once Atlantis is gone, then what? It might have been better just to make that the end of the game. But there's lots to contemplate in any case on the way to the downfall, so quite complete from that angle.

This is something I'll have to give attention to, and illustrates the problems of writing a deep texture game as short as this one. I meant for the aftermath to be as important as the Fall, but apparently it didn't survive through my hands to the paper.

Consider: Atlantis is gone, and the game is rigged against the survival of Wonder. The heaven has fallen, and you hold a piece of it. What will you do? The trailing off is intention, similarly to the assumed destruction of Atlantis piece by piece; things are not dualistic here, but there is an infinity of shades of gray between life and death. It will take years for Disintegration to nibble Atlantis apart, and likewise it'll take centuries for the race to die if colonization is done correctly. Despite this, they will die, and the human history will start. It's the Dawn, when the lesser race finally gets it's chance to grow. We know humanity will surpass Atlantis with time, but is it because of the Heritage or despite it? Or is this a world without future...

I meant for the game to end when the group has determined how Atlantis will impact human history. This could be when the last colony dies, or when the first halfbreed king ascends the throne of Assamia. I'll be adding a mechanic for determining game end, actually.

Anyway, that's for the Atlantis game. It's the easiest of these to my mind, with only few mechanical problems (mainly the numbers; it's complex to get the dice mechanic to work right). On the other hand, I'm not writing english as a native, so we'll see if I get the vision on paper with efficiency.

Third and last is the Brotherhood. I myself think that my games got better as the week wore on, but Mike disagrees. Again, I take this as my failure to communicate the vision, instead of his to understand my genius ;)

The Brotherhood - Eero Tuovinen

As I see it, the main problems of Brotherhood are some minor rules twiddling and a rewrite for structure. Nothing big. Then again, it has something going against it: it's really more of a scenario for a complete fantasy adventure game than a game, to the extent that I'm considering billing it as a modular adventure game in the future. The rewrite will have to account for this better.

Style: Seemingly an especially grim version of D&D, the text doesn't really do a good job of evoking a consistent style (mostly being a negation of other ideas, rather than positive statements). Mechanically, the idea is that you get bonuses for doing things in the grim style, which seems to weakly support narrating in that direction. The Ice mechanic seems to incongruously indicate a somewhat hopeful condition. This may be from a confused reading of the intent of the mechanic, on the other hand. In any case, it doesn't help the style.

I agree completely about the style. The game was seeded from a floating idea of balancing statistics, so stylistically it's currently a little thin. It can however be developed, and there is thin strands to work with in there already.

I'm imagining the game not to be especially grim in style, assuming I understand the word's nuances. Rather it's about how a given play group interprets the material. The Ice mechanic, for example, is a two-edged sword: on the one hand a character can betray others through it, and on the other he can rise through ultimate trust to defeat the wizard.

Estimated Effectiveness in Play: chargen seems interesting, fascinating, even, but there are some odd cases (like the recognition requirements can't always be met). They do, however enforce the goals of play rigorously. One small problem is that players can explore the tavern and environs indefinitely – which could end up being an odd completely secondary game.

Rather, some characters are recognized but the player will have to choose if he includes them in the flashback. If not, they are strangers too. The tavern adventure is hardly a problem, as there is only a limited amount of things players can get out of it. When the GM decides that they have everything they are getting, he can say so.

Resolution looks at first promising, with the danger and hazards, but then they seem to not be followed up upon. In the initial adjusting of Ice values (+/- 1), it doesn't say which player performs the adjustment. Even more arcane is how one is supposed to keep track of ICE in terms of getting GM OK.

Could you elucidate on what you had in mind about the danger and hazards? As far as Ice goes, the player of the character decides on his own Ice values, lowering and rising them with GM permission. Ice is how the character trusts the other.

The Ice powers are interesting in and of themselves, including one of the most ingenious resurrection mechanics that I've ever heard of.

Yeah, I like the resurrection. The game had a major problem with death because new characters couldn't be introduced, but that helps it considerably.

The structure of play seems to be pretty stable, and I think that the dungeon crawling will go fine. The real question is whether or not the gamism will produce the sorts of behaviors that are supposed to be promoted. There are some real "prisoner's dilemma" moments amongst the players. The problem is that, as players not experiencing real results, I think that they'll have no problem avoiding the "sellout" pitfall, and will win out in terms of having loads of power. And the theme desired will be absent. If that analysis is true, then the game needs some real fixing before it'll be even a good one-shot.

I'd like to hear more thoughts on this matter. I'm thinking that there is hardly any way of gaining power in the game except through the Brotherhood, and to get that power, you have to trust and be trusted. Then there is the winning angle: the character that kills the wizard gets the harem and the riches. Could be a communication problem, I guess.

I agree that the game will fall apart if the resonance and Ice mechanics combined with the situation and character characterisation do not spark, the game will become normal dungeon hack, albeit with a very robust and fast engine.

Completeness: it could be played through to a conclusion, but probably doesn't provide enough of a gamist challenge to be really interesting. Nor enough oomph in the right places to make for a good narrativist challenge. So it definitely needs some tweaking before it's really complete.

I'll be thinking on this seriously, so if you or any other have any details, I'll be happy to consider them. I tried to move with a light touch with the game, making strategizing without the resonances and Ice possible but hard. The gamist challenge comes from the strict turn structure and narrating in ways that gain resonance and advantageous rolls.

Anyway, I myself am somewhat at a loss right now as to what should be changed in the Brotherhood. I'll be fixing the Ice mechanics somewhat to make it even more dangerous to trust, and the dungeoneering mechanics to allow for wandering monsters. Little fiddling, not really worthy of the forum's attention. Apart from a general rewrite I like the game for what it is; a limited scenario.



Now, these are the games, and some kernels of how I see them. I'll be thinking on the matter and writing more about them when I get the time to do some design work. In the meanwhile Mike and others are free to tell me their impressions, if they care. I'm especially interested in the following:
- shortcuts for the BFW mechanics: they are too complex, with too many different rules, especially in the battle rules. Are you seeing something I'm not?
- A stronger use for the Edge in the BFW, or other mechanics better suited to differentiate the battle situation from the general run of challenges.
- Some hard thinking on the numbers of the Atlantis game. I can do this myself, but might be some other mathematically inclined person takes a different tack in evaluating the die probabilities.
- Thematic wibes from the Atlantis game. I understand it's not very evocative, but the next version should be. Are there themes or premises I've apparently missed?
- Doesn't anyone understand how brilliant the resonance rules of the Brotherhood actually are socially ;?

Truth to tell, I'm not too good with inventing questions about my games; I tend to be very independent thinker, and do not easily formulate my thinking cooperatively. Most likely I already have an answer when I can formulate a question. If anyone likes to comment on the games and generally point out things I've missed, I'm grateful. Mike's judging in itself was useful in this regard.

[Eero Tuovinen]

I've started working on the Fall of Atlantis and the Dawn of Human history. The following has proved a stumbling block. It's only pertinent to core resolution mechanics so it doesn't slow me down yet, but it has to be resolved before the game can be considered playable. The problem and efforts at solving it follow.

The FADH uses a non-layered skill system, where a player tries to roll a number of dice so that the sum of the results fall between character skill and task difficulty. The dice come from "motivation pyramids" where different types of dice are arranged in a way that makes large die types much more plentiful than the small. The idea is that a smaller die is better because it's result is more predictable.

Now, the system certainly has some interesting features, some of which are intentional, while others make it unplayable as is. The major problem is that while die type is extremely important with small difficulties/skill values, it loses all significance with bigger numbers. The game uses roughly a range of 0-200 in difficulty and even more in skill values, so the problem is evident: while for a roll of 2/6 (2 difficulty, 6 skill) the choise of die type is important, for 50/60 it's quite meaningless, as the player cannot hope to get thirty d4s anyway, and has to gain most of the value from d10s. What I want here is a way of manipulating this distortion to alternate the amount of significance die type has, as well as some situation hooks in which to connect such a system. Do note that I have no problem with a degree of inflation in skill values with higher difficulties: it's an intentional feature that a difference of ten between skill and difficulty ranges from enormous to insignificant depending on the actual values.

So, two questions: how to manipulate the distortion, and where to put it in the system. I'll give some options I've considered. Before going to them, though, note that the system has no problem with substracting dice; I'll assume in the following that a die roll or some of the dice rolled may as well be negative if such is warranted in the fix.

First, the simplest way of removing or adding to the distortion is to add a constant to the roll. This is equal to substracting from both skill and difficulty, as can easily be seen. Such a constant would always favor a given difficulty, even making for an automatic success if the task difficulty were really close to the constant in value. Thus such a constant would obviously present some in-game factor of scale: the same constant of f.ex. 50 is very beneficial to a difficulty of 60, while it's near catastrophic for a difficulty of 5.

The problem I have with the constant approach is that I've yet to recognize a suitable hook in the game components to fasten it to. To understand the problem one probably will have to read whole of the game text here. I considered the following: every character has a Passion value, which starts every year from zero. The player can always add a constant to his rolls by adding the same value to his Passion. At the end of the year the player equalizes the Passion by adding to his aging roll. Thus a character could as long as skill sufficed forego rolling in part or whole by taking a suitable constant, but would have to be careful not to push too much, in fear of failing the ageing roll.

Now, the above works fine except for being extremely chaotic, gradated (a player likely will take an automatic success if he uses passion at all in a given roll) and unnecessary focus-wise (the motivation pyramids already focus character passion). Rolling empty rolls for negative passion won't be a problem with the rules, by the way. I present the passion as an example of what I'm looking for. The constant offers intriguing opportunities, but so far I'm still looking for a way of adding it that I'm comfortable with.

Another mechanic for correction, different from the constant, is a re-roll: After the first roll of the dice the player may make a second roll and add (or substract) it to the first one. This will obviously do the same kinds of things the constant does, as the first roll will be a constant for the second. In a sense the player corrects the first roll with a smaller one, trying to touch the interval between difficulty and skill.

Now, I have the same problem with this mechanic as with the constant. When is a character eligible? Obviously even a single reroll is a very powerful tool, so it can hardly be left for GM decision or some such. I won't be giving an example possibility because I'm completely stumped as to what kind of thematic element. simulation detail or premise perspective could be represented by the re-roll.

The problem I have is essentially that I'll have to add a mechanic, and I'm looking for the most evocative one (this game flies or dies with it's colorful mechanics), and a place to put it in. A rare problem, as usually a designer has to rather remove things than add them. I even have a couple of possibilities for the mechanic, but no idea of where to put them. Therefore I'm asking for ideas. I don't doubt that another brain can relatively easily spot a side of the game stuff that can be promoted to foreground by tying one of the above mechanics to it. "Determine the constant from the moon phase!" or something, just better.

[Mike Holmes]

In terms of your first post on "Battle", I think that there's not much that you don't have a solution for that can't be implemented by some rewriting. That is, a bit more orgnization, and most problems work themselves out.

The problem I have with the constant approach is that I've yet to recognize a suitable hook in the game components to fasten it to.

I considered the following: every character has a Passion value, which starts every year from zero. The player can always add a constant to his rolls by adding the same value to his Passion. At the end of the year the player equalizes the Passion by adding to his aging roll. Thus a character could as long as skill sufficed forego rolling in part or whole by taking a suitable constant, but would have to be careful not to push too much, in fear of failing the ageing roll.

To be clear, the constant used to add to a roll, would also add to the aging roll? Interesting. Could a player add a portion of his level? Thus reducing his risk to age, but increasing risk to fail?

What if, instead of passion, the constant was based on political power? That is, I think that right now you allow a flat +20? What if that were variable, and had to be maintained? Could make a good substitute.

The real value of constants is that it means less dice need to be rolled at any time.

Another mechanic for correction, different from the constant, is a re-roll: After the first roll of the dice the player may make a second roll and add (or substract) it to the first one. This will obviously do the same kinds of things the constant does, as the first roll will be a constant for the second. In a sense the player corrects the first roll with a smaller one, trying to touch the interval between difficulty and skill.

I must be missing what you mean, because this seems to exaggerate the problem to me, not fix it. More dice mean the type is less meaningful again, no? In any case, I'm leaning towards the constant idea, strongly.

Mike

[Eero Tuovinen]

What if, instead of passion, the constant was based on political power? That is, I think that right now you allow a flat +20? What if that were variable, and had to be maintained? Could make a good substitute.

That's actually a very good idea. Works with the game's focus matter quite nicely. It handles political power differently from any other kind (which are all skills), though, so I'll have to consider if it doesn't break some inner logic. Seems strange at first to handle it differently, but then again, it's legitimate to assert that any and all tasks can actually be benefited by political power. Excepting physical small scale ones, certainly, but their difficulties are not high to begin with.

I've myself been considering making the constant a roll-over mechanic, like in Sorcerer and some other games: let the player take a formerly rolled task roll in some situations and add it to a new roll. This is however quite powerful, so I'll have to give stricter guidelines than seems currently possible for this kind of thing. Very powerful if I get it right, and flexible too.

If the roll-over should be too complex we'll definitely go with your idea: add an universal political constant representing Atlantean political power. I've a suitable value in the game already, so there's not much work to it.

The real value of constants is that it means less dice need to be rolled at any time.

Certainly helps, the game uses quite a bit.

Another mechanic for correction, different from the constant, is a re-roll...

I must be missing what you mean, because this seems to exaggerate the problem to me, not fix it. More dice mean the type is less meaningful again, no? In any case, I'm leaning towards the constant idea, strongly.

I meant simply that the player rolls once, checks what he got, and rolls again to add to the former roll. In the first roll larger dice presumably suffice, but in the latter smaller are useful because the first gives a constant. Anyway, while this seemed like a strong idea at the time, I too prefer the constant to be gained in some more meaningful way. There's already more than enough fiddling in a task roll without adding a re-roll.

The roll-over above is nice in that it uses both ideas at the same time, in a way: while the constant is gained by simply rolling, the number is really a constant long before the task it's used for comes up.


In any case, I'm now putting finishing touches to the next version of the game. My goal is to have it for Mike tonight. The text seems beautiful to me, but then it tends to do so right after writing it. Apart from possible problems with the constant and cutting excess explanations, the game is relatively ready.


My next victim for rewrite is the Battle, I think. I'll have to do that after 25. of this month, though. Gives me some time to ponder it, too. If I continue with this speed all games should make the deadline, I'm thinking. I'll return to the thread when I read Battle through with an eye to improvements.