Gettin' old, tactical to strategic preference

[Sydney Freedberg]

.... Thats why certain tactics become better, because the situation presented consistant reward the same strategy, because the game world is consistant. Yes, it would be terrible if there were explosive barrels in the room you chuck a grenade in, should have thought your way around it. .... you throw that grenade into the room, the barrels explode and kill you and the GM punishes you for what the system and his previous consistancy rewarded. Meh.

Aha. But presumably if you have a real, live, thinking enemy, they'd notice you chuck handgrenades into rooms as a matter of course and try precisely that kind of trap. The reason why real-world conflict is so hard is that the world is NOT consistent, and therefore does NOT consistently reward the same strategy, because "the other side gets a vote."

This is tricky to implement in a standard RPG where the GM is both adversary and referee at once (and there're whole threads on splitting those roles). And there are, as you say, "robust" (never perfect) tactical options in real life -- that's why, say, the Roman Legions were a dominant force for centuries, or all modern day tanks have a single turret and one big gun. But if a group of players is getting bored with tactical options, my guess is that the GM has stopped "stepping on up" back at them. Any tactic, used predictably, becomes a trap.

[NN]

Well, throwing grenades around is only going to work if the ...er... 'strategic' aim of the dungeon-delve is to destroy as much of the enemy as possible. If the aim is to rescue the prisoners, or secretly copy the battle plans...etc...throwing grenades around, while supremely effective at killing guards, is totally useless for the wider aim. Which is sort of what I mean about setting being the key, although maybe im using the term wrong.

[Callan S.]

.... Thats why certain tactics become better, because the situation presented consistant reward the same strategy, because the game world is consistant. Yes, it would be terrible if there were explosive barrels in the room you chuck a grenade in, should have thought your way around it. .... you throw that grenade into the room, the barrels explode and kill you and the GM punishes you for what the system and his previous consistancy rewarded. Meh.

Aha. But presumably if you have a real, live, thinking enemy, they'd notice you chuck handgrenades into rooms as a matter of course and try precisely that kind of trap. The reason why real-world conflict is so hard is that the world is NOT consistent, and therefore does NOT consistently reward the same strategy, because "the other side gets a vote."

Thanks for your replies, your really helping me bounce some ideas around.

The problem here, in gamist terms, is that if the player doesn't have a hope of knowing/guessing it (ie, its foreshadowed), its not something he can give input on/step on up to. Suddenly out of the blue explosive barrels are in the room? It's a sucker punch, not gamism, the GM can always get players that way and its very realistic in terms of the real world...but were not doing sim. And players using twisting, ever changing tactics to get around that simply means the players never have a sense of refined skill at the game...they just go bat shit to avoid how the enemy goes bat shit.

And ultimately, the explosive barrels will just have a work around. Flip a mirror around the corner to see as part of the standard exercise and its handled. Which really isn't as exciting as those first times you played and figured out the much larger grenade exercise.

So a change in consistancy starts as a sucker punch, it rewards bat shit tactics changing by players rather than rewarding the build up of solid tactics, and in the end its typically neutered by something mundane (the mirror).

A side note on what I mean by consistancy: I mean a certain arena of conflict which is delivered more or less in the same way, so one can feel that one can 'conquour' it with apt tactics. A world which keeps changing to neutralise past tactics may engage your mind, but your mind (perhaps in older gamers) will also tell you 'your not progressing in the least here. Why work hard at something you can get nowhere with? Why step up to  this?'

This is tricky to implement in a standard RPG where the GM is both adversary and referee at once (and there're whole threads on splitting those roles). And there are, as you say, "robust" (never perfect) tactical options in real life -- that's why, say, the Roman Legions were a dominant force for centuries, or all modern day tanks have a single turret and one big gun. But if a group of players is getting bored with tactical options, my guess is that the GM has stopped "stepping on up" back at them. Any tactic, used predictably, becomes a trap.

As I outlined before, I think the GM can only step on up so much before he rewards bat shit tactics, etc.

However, that is just at the individual level. Instead of just pushing harder (step on up back at them) at one level (the individual level), if the system actually provided multiple levels of conflict handling (with connection between them), the GM has that many more points to push on with just the right pressure. In other words, not pushing harder, instead pushing broader!

Hi NN,
The grenade simply becomes a gas grenade then. The foundation of the problem here is that older gamists have an entire repotoire of tactics in their head. It was enjoyable to develop them, but its not so enjoyable simply remembering them. And if the GM does something to add inconsistancy, like all hostages always choke to death on the grenades, its just penalising good tactics...which feels more like a switch to simulationism (or even nar) than a step on up challenge.

[M. J. Young]

I'm going to call attention to my most recent http://www.gamingoutpost.com/GL/index.cfm?action=ShowProduct&CategoryID=54411&ProductID=81437&publisherid=81290">Game Ideas Unlimited: Resources on this. (Due to a glitch in the transition to the new system, the last four Game Ideas articles are all free, so no membership is required.) It makes several points about running adversaries in-game that I think are relevant here.

As far back as OAD&D, referee advice has included that monsters should learn from player tactics. If the players use an easily acquired weapon against them, they will acquire it to use in response. If they consistently use the same tactic, the monsters will find responses to that tactic.

To a degree, it seems like the referee is being unfair. Certainly he is being unfair if

[*]his monsters are prepared for tactics the referee anticipates but the monsters couldn't possibly know;[*]the monsters have the ability to pull a rabbit out the the hat, that is, to immediately have a satisfactory counter to some surprise tactic the players present.[/list:u]However, part of the step-on-up is that the players are going to have to out-play the referee, and the referee is going to challenge them with enemies who are smarter and more prepared, and probably who have heard about how "The Hero Party" managed to massacre those orcs not so many miles away by surprising them with this amazing tactic.

There is nothing unfair about having adversaries learn from their mistakes, or from their defeats, or from information which reasonably could reach them about the successes of their potential enemies.

--M. J. Young

[NN]

Noon, surely in a game like D&D the tactics evolve anyway as the party gains levels? At first Fireball is a devastating weapon...but eventually diminishes into a mook-clearing convenience.

There may be a problem in that dungeon-bashing tactics become boring...so dont send the party dungeon bashing...send them on a mission with an unusual constraint, which means they have to devise new tactics.

Noon, I dont see Sim as a problem for the gamist. Surely a consistent, realistic background can give the players a greater chance to anticipate and plan than gamist adventures determined by GM whim? (Ok guys...we are facing orcs with experienced uruk officers and thule cultist leadership..therefore we will need....)

What do you mean about pushing broader? Would an example, be, the players are facing an orc invasion, and as well as having the - tactical - challenge of battle, they have a -strategic- challenge of where and when to fight?

[Andrew Martin]

The foundation of the problem here is that older gamists have an entire repotoire of tactics in their head. It was enjoyable to develop them, but its not so enjoyable simply remembering them. And if the GM does something to add inconsistancy, like all hostages always choke to death on the grenades, its just penalising good tactics...which feels more like a switch to simulationism (or even nar) than a step on up challenge.

Wouldn't the answer to the problem be much like real life officer training and experience in the army, navy and air force? The officer is promoted a rank and learns to lead a larger force, while training those with lower experience. So if clearing 10x10 rooms in D&D become boring, try playing skirmish wargame that feature dozens of combatants. And if that thrill fades, move up to tank versus tank, or army versus army. Then if that becomes old hat, move on to playing Diplomacy! :)

[Mike Holmes]

1. The age thing is silly. It's experience you're talking about, and more importantly, novelty. That is, doing anything over and over gets less interesting with time. So, yes, to the extent that you may have seen a tactical situation before, seeing it again isn't interesting.

2. Thing is, that scale, "level of action," Strategy vs. tactics all miss the point. TROS has a combat system that focuses on the smallest of interactions. And by doing so well it makes the game nigh infinitely playable. In this way it shares the "easy to learn, but difficult to master," feature that you find in a game like chess or go.


I'm relatively old, but I still enjoy a good tactical game (I'm playing Advanced Civilization this weekend). Yeah, most RPGs make crappy tactical games. But that's a problem with design, and not with RPGs in general. Make a good design, and scale, strategic level, all that doesn't matter at all.

Mike

[Callan S.]

MJ Young and NN,

I have to say, there's a certain currency you can collect in a gamist game, and it's not represented in the game. It's understanding the conflicts of the system and having a solution for them. Collecting this currency is much like collecting trophies for sports in RL. It says you got somewhere with the pursuit.

Now, the thing is, the behaviour patterns of bad guys in games are, in light of this, almost as important to be relatively static as their stats are. For example, if kobolds aren't challenging enough, cranking up their strength till they are isn't on. It removes the understanding currency you had before, that was all based on a certain strength. This is somewhat like trying to make a game more fun for someone by just taking away the thousand gold they had collected, so they can have the 'fun' of collecting it all again. It's just destroying progress.

So, like their stats, the behavior of foes can't change so much it can simply skip around player tactics. Your just destroying progress/trophy knowledge that way. You can destroy a bit...no one minds a small upset, but any larger and your stealing from peter (destroying trophy knowledge) to pay paul (increase required thinking).

Mike Holmes: Yeah, the age thing isn't relevant, but it is useful short hand for describing what I mean. Besides, I think TROS references the demographic as well.

Speaking of TROS, I mentioned it before and its chess like qualities. The thing is, notice how tros goes into fine detail...its almost like creating sub levels of tactical moves. Levels below the individual level, if you get what I mean. If you don't, just think how it deals with the smallest of actions. Instead of going micro I want to go macro, and that's just as valid a direction.

The only problem with macro, as I struggled with in the first post, is that the individual level is still repetitive to play out. Expanding into the micro of it (as well as the macro) is likely to lay most focus on individual combat than get any benefit out of going macro.

And I'll be honest, I'd just like to play around in the bigger picture (as well as the small). At a mathematical only level its sort of like just playing tros (with all its micro detail) I realise, but still I'll call it big picture and say I want to go there.

Andrew Martin: Err, that's almost exactly what I mean (a little off, but almost). Except the aim isn't to play at any of those levels you mentioned exclusively, but at all of them.

[Andrew Martin]

Andrew Martin: Err, that's almost exactly what I mean (a little off, but almost). Except the aim isn't to play at any of those levels you mentioned exclusively, but at all of them.

This usually fails in the wargames world because most people run out of time to play all the low level games, and players forget to play the high level game. Also, unless the combined system is designed well, a poor outcome at one level usually means complete defeat at lower levels.

[greedo1379]

On weakening in one place for an advantage in another: If you think about it, the grenade example is that. Your using up a grenade on a potentially empty room (when you use this as a default clearing tactic), making a hell of a lot of noise and defening yourself to potentially very important background noises. There's pluses and minuses.

But the thing is, it works out being more plus. You can't exactly have a system where all tactics are equal all the time...whats the point of choosing between them? If there's no greater tactic, you can't input anything as a player, a coin could do it.

Unless you sometimes make it so its more of a minus.  The guys all throw in the grenade and the alarm goes off.  Klaxons go off and enemy soldiers pour into the room.  Or they throw in the grenade and there's no one in there.  Ever.  They use up all the grenades on empty rooms.  Or the grenades are sold out.  Or go up in price.  If they are buying crates of them there has to be some supply and demand action.  Is it worth that pile of money to kill off a dozen mooks when you can just melee them to death?  And so on.  If you present the same challenge (room full of mooks, character carrying a dozen grenades, no need to worry about side effects of grenade like sound, cost, etc.) then of course the same solution that worked before will work again.  Present a new wrinkle to the scenario and they will enjoy solving the new puzzle.

[NN]

MJ Young and NN,
Now, the thing is, the behaviour patterns of bad guys in games are, in light of this, almost as important to be relatively static as their stats are. For example, if kobolds aren't challenging enough, cranking up their strength till they are isn't on. It removes the understanding currency you had before, that was all based on a certain strength.

this is where we part company: for me, whether or not 'cranking up the kobolds' is ok is an issue of believability and internal consistency. Cranking em up just to screw the players is a mistake...cranking 'em up for reasons justifiable in the internal logic of your world is a good thing.

And what about the "behaviour patterns" of the most intelligent and powerful monsters? Shouldnt they be inherently unpredictable?

[Mike Holmes]

Mike Holmes: Yeah, the age thing isn't relevant, but it is useful short hand for describing what I mean. Besides, I think TROS references the demographic as well.

The "older" gamer? You then mean players who are not the designers, or the artists who play, etc, who are all pretty young. Or people like Lance, Alexander...heck, most of the people that I know play the game are young.

Of course I suppose that all depends on what you consider old. I'm only 35, and I don't think of myself as old. Gygax just had a stroke recently - he's definitely old. If you mean "experienced" gamer, say that - eveyone knows and expects that term.

A good game appeals to all demograhpics. For the player looking for a good tactical game, D&D is played only because it's presented often. Once past that, people look for the better game. The only reason that mostly "experienced" players play TROS is because most players are introduced through D&D. I'll bet that if we ask in the forum, we'll find a few people who play who are not "experienced" per se. Again, about proportional to the D&D entrance rate.

Speaking of TROS, I mentioned it before and its chess like qualities. The thing is, notice how tros goes into fine detail...its almost like creating sub levels of tactical moves. Levels below the individual level, if you get what I mean. If you don't, just think how it deals with the smallest of actions. Instead of going micro I want to go macro, and that's just as valid a direction.

I completely agree with all of this. Again, however, there's nothing about the level of detail that neccessarily makes the game good. Phoenix Command is a detailed tactical game. But the detail actually reduces tactical choice, it doesn't increase it.

Design of a challenging tactical game involves creating a structure in which situations arise that vary enough from case to case where skills have to be employed to determine an optimal strategy (I'm using that word here in the extrememly well defined Game Theory usage, which I suggest people consider). That doesn't necessarily require more "levels" or detail. It can, but it's just one option amongst many.

Yes, with few options it's difficult to create the strategically interesting situation - but not impossible. Again, see Go.

The only problem with macro, as I struggled with in the first post, is that the individual level is still repetitive to play out. Expanding into the micro of it (as well as the macro) is likely to lay most focus on individual combat than get any benefit out of going macro.

Likely, but not impossible to make it work. What I'd do is to make the individual combats just "resolutions" that have an effect on the larger scale. That is, don't try to create any tactical level interest in the small scale itself, just make the results of the small scale the "detail" that needs to be accounted for on the large scale.

Ever play "Squad Leader"? Or, better, ASL?

And I'll be honest, I'd just like to play around in the bigger picture (as well as the small). At a mathematical only level its sort of like just playing tros (with all its micro detail) I realise, but still I'll call it big picture and say I want to go there.

I think it's a valid rout. It's just one of an infinite number of possiblities. If that's what you want to look at, I have no doubt that a game can be made that does what you're looking for. Again, see the many, many wargames that do just this sort of thing.

Mike

[Callan S.]

Oooh, jeez, okay I'll nixed the short hand. 'Experienced' it is. Ouch.

In regards to details, the detail rule wise isn't so important as there being some structure. Players describing their squad level tactics and the GM going 'Hmmm, yeah, that'll do' and rough guessing is about as good as a player describing how he hits an orc and the GM going 'Hmmm, yeah, it hurts him a bit'. Freeform is lovely. But. This is not a push for detail as for a little more structure somewhere beyond the individual level. I mean, just like RPG systems don't have to have a combat system in them, when they do, they don't just have to revolve around the individual level. Unless there is a wargamming cultural cringe in the hobby if they do.

Design of a challenging tactical game involves creating a structure in which situations arise that vary enough from case to case where skills have to be employed to determine an optimal strategy (I'm using that word here in the extrememly well defined Game Theory usage, which I suggest people consider). That doesn't necessarily require more "levels" or detail. It can, but it's just one option amongst many.

Tros does this and damn well. Okay, lets say rather than being bored with individual combat system wise, its more a boredom with the sole system focus on the idea of just individual combat. Mostly born from the fact that most combat systems reward tactics that work in the real world (get those down pretty well and you've got the system down pretty well).

Likely, but not impossible to make it work. What I'd do is to make the individual combats just "resolutions" that have an effect on the larger scale. That is, don't try to create any tactical level interest in the small scale itself, just make the results of the small scale the "detail" that needs to be accounted for on the large scale.

Ah, the abstraction route. As I've said, I think this simplifies the individual level which is sort of like removing it and making the next level simpler to understand. As far as I can see, anyway.

Ever play "Squad Leader"? Or, better, ASL?

No. Scared. And as I said, I don't nessersarily want super detail (a few people have read that in), I just want some/a little system handling of higher up stuff. And I don't think that deserves to be called a desire for a wargame. :)

NN: Cranking up bad guys in a way that fits the internal consistancy of the game world is valid play style. I'm talking in terms of cranking them up in a way that fits the internal consistancy of gaming (not the game world, just gaming).

It's possibly more of a safe way of playing and not as daring as game world consistancy. But I think our group has found many unsatisfying ways of play can occur when any of us, when GM'ing, insist on somthing that is world consistant, but haven't thought about what it would be like as a player.

[Mike Holmes]

In regards to details, the detail rule wise isn't so important as there being some structure. Players describing their squad level tactics and the GM going 'Hmmm, yeah, that'll do' and rough guessing is about as good as a player describing how he hits an orc and the GM going 'Hmmm, yeah, it hurts him a bit'.

This is what I meant by detail. Rules that produce detail, as opposed to detail being imposed by narration. I use detail as a term when refering to the whole "realism" debate, which often comes down to people feeling that the system needs to provide more smaller level details.

Okay, lets say rather than being bored with individual combat system wise, its more a boredom with the sole system focus on the idea of just individual combat. Mostly born from the fact that most combat systems reward tactics that work in the real world (get those down pretty well and you've got the system down pretty well).

We're saying the same thing in a different way. I'm saying that by looking at combat in smaller detail, mechanically, that you disallow the player from relying on what he already "knows" works. That is, yes, in TROS, the simple tactic of ganging up works as it does in most systems. But when one on one, simply saying "I attack" isn't sufficient, and doing the most basic attacks repeatedly will get your character killed. It's precisely because TROS takes "attacking" and breaks it up into it's own smaller structure that makes it good.

That is, by using more detailed mechanics it makes a harder to master game, making it take longer, if ever, to become a "known" game. A "known" game is one in which the best strategies are understood. This makes them boring to play because there's really no input from the player, no challenge for him. The mandate here is to create games that aren't known, and will not become known easily.

That can happen on any level of abstraction or scale.

Ah, the abstraction route. As I've said, I think this simplifies the individual level which is sort of like removing it and making the next level simpler to understand. As far as I can see, anyway.

I'm not sure what you're getting at. What I'm seeing is an individual getting a mechanical result like "stunned" or "injured" or "out of position". Then the macro level becomes looking at the individuals and seeing what the best strategy is given the current indivisual levels.

No. Scared. And as I said, I don't nessersarily want super detail (a few people have read that in), I just want some/a little system handling of higher up stuff. And I don't think that deserves to be called a desire for a wargame. :)

I'm a big fan of these games. I point them out as something that can give you an idea of how to accomplish macro level play of many individuals. For example, in these games you usually only operate the squads in total, with the exceptions of leaders who have special effects. But some results cause individuals to "sprout" out of squads. For example, there's the hero rule where some guy will suddenly become very bold, and have inordinate effects on the battle.

It's very interesting stuff. Perhaps even a level above what you might be looking at, but still worth a check, IMO. There are a few wargames that have individuals as pieces, too. The point is that these games take the effects on individuals calculated simply, and make an interesting tactical situation by applying the effects on the individuals to the squad scale (in wargamerese there's individual scale, squad scale, tactical scale, operational scale, theatre scale, and strategic scale.)

Mike

[Tim Alexander]

Hey guys,

At a basic level things become boring if the same tactics always work. You've already talked about how TROS avoids this by having a rather chesslike interaction; but it's at a small scale. There's no real reason such a system couldn't be adopted to a larger scale with the same sort of chesslike interaction. Frankly, that's what chess sort of emulates. In order to be able to move between the layers and keep things interesting I'd suggest you start at the macro conflict and use the micro conflicts as modifiers thereof. I'll use chess and TROS to illustrate:

So, let's say you're playing a game of chess (or a gamist RP equivalent) to determine the outcome of the war against the Ork hoards. The players are down a few pieces and the GM is pretty much having his way with them, meaning the Ork hoards are running roughshod over the players.

The players call for a small scale skirmish (let's say a human group making a clandestine attack to make way for an important courier for reinforcements to the main conflict.) Chess pieces (or a gamist RP currency equivalent) are bid to decide aspects of the skirmish, the winner of the bidding getting some sort of tactical advantage in exchange for greater risk, and then the scene is played out via TROS. The winner of the skirmish gains or loses the relevent pieces bid and you return to your newly modified chess game.

This idea would need a lot of work to be functional, but it's how I'd handle the sort of thing you're looking for Noon. I don't know of anything that currently does this elegantly. Is this the sort of thing you're looking for, or have I missed the mark?

-Tim

[edit: Just wanted to acknowledge that Mike's basically said this, I just wanted to give a more concrete play example with games already brought into the discussion.]