Strategy Games and Theory

[F. Scott Banks]

I've been on the Forge for awhile and I still have trouble categorizing my thoughts and ideas into easily arranged subjects for discussion.

I've gained a fairly comprehensive understanding of RPG theory while designing two games.  One a "storytelling" RPG, and another highly technical fantasy RPG.  My approach to making narrative RPGs is starting to become my own and I've even come up with a few of my own interpretations on the GNS model (they apply to electronic media though).

But I want to make a strategy game.  I started making narrative, character-driven RPG's because I've never played one that I liked.  They always seemed to have boundless potential, but tangled the storytelling up with tedious bookeeping and number-crunching.  So...I started making one that had all the things I always wanted to see in an RPG.

For the most part...done.  The design is long and must be shaped to fit the media I intend to use...but the hard part is largely done.  If anything, i'm finding I could've been easier on myself.  It's unneccesarily complex in places.

But in any event, this is about strategy games.  I want to learn more about RPG theory and how it applies to strategy games, the games that are supposed to have lots of micro-management and thought beforehand.  In implementing the group warfare elements of my fantasy RPG, I found that I wanted it to be richer and more in-depth.

Of course...since there's no airstrikes or laser guided artillery in a fantasy RPG, there's only so involved combat can be on that level.

So basically, I was curious about the theories behind developing a strategy game.  I've put so much into my D&D killer (not that it was my consious goal, but I seem to get as far from that system's conventions as I possibly can...I wonder about myself) that I feel my overall RPG education is lacking somewhat.

I've got telling stories down to a delicate art...now I want to enjoy crunching numbers.  I want the bookeeping to be fun.  I've argued that there's no logical reason for computer RPG's to suck as violently as they do and I'm (with a team of frighteningly talented people) trying to prove that adding a computer to the game doesn't automatically equal substandard roleplay.

Now I want to prove that bookeeping needn't be boring to gamists and roleplayers.  I'm not sure about the divides among RPGers, but among computer gamers, each camp is violently opposed to enjoying the fruits of the other.  If you try to purchase a copy of the Sims and a copy of Doom in the same trip to a computer store, you get looked at like you're selling governemnt secrets.  I want to learn enough about RPG theory, as it applies to strategy, so that I can one day make a game that appeals to storytellers and armchair generals alike.

It's time to let the healing begin.

[clehrich]

Can you give a few examples of what you mean by "strategy game"?  I don't mean to be stupid, but I find myself groping for a specific example, because "strategy game" to me means so many different things.

[F. Scott Banks]

Well, in this specific example, I'd mean a game wherein players take on the role of "Mercenary Generals" commanding troops for fun and profit.  Responsibilities would involve not only moving troops around on their screen but also maintaining the flow of supplies to those troops in the field, management of mining equipment, manufacturing of war materiel, growing hydroponics for life support, and trading with other players "on your team" in other hotspots (which could be on completely different planets) for equipment and personnel you need.

Basically, whereas the fantasy game has deep character development, up to the point of having kids, raising a family, and maintaining a small economy by running a shop or ruling a nation (oh yeah...there's also the hack-and-slash questing goodness that we all sometimes like to lose ourselves in), this would deal largely with management...supplies, troops, equipment, and trade with allies, neutrals, and perhaps some under-the-table enemy transactions...you're all mercenaries after all...gotta get paid.

I've got a title but forays into that aspect of development are more suited to the Game Design section.

See Ron...I'm learning.  No more mega posts for everyone to sift through.

[epweissengruber]

I can only point you to a potentially useful resource.  I am myself just starting to process this material and cannot directly apply it to game design, but it sounds like you could.

The world of simulation education has all kinds of games that can be used to simulate real-world strategic conflict.  They use simple bookkeeping devices to manage lines of conflict and for keeping track of resources.  They also use computers in running their immersive simulations.

Check out dramatec.com .  They are a conflict resolution consulting firm that employs the Drama Theory of Nigel Howard to resolve real-world conflicts.

An exploration of their website or the textbook that they have on offer will show you how to translate complicated political events into emotion-laden mechanics.

Here is an introductory article.

http://www.dramatec.com/articles/library/a199810001/index.html


This table of contents from the articles archive should give you clues to the potentially stealable ideas on this site.

Card Tables
- Although they are powerful tools for representing and analyzing dramas, card tables can be unwieldly for less experienced users.
- This article describes some revisions to the card table that attempt to make it more "user friendly
     
Tug of War Diagrams
- "Tug of War" diagrams abstract much of the detail contained within card tables and help to focus attention on the dilemmas that need to be resolved - i.e. on the dynamics of the situation.
- This article introduces the Tug of War diagram and explains how it can be used in analyzing dramas.

Immersive Soaps in Knowledge Management
- Knowledge Management has failed to live up to its hype. Immersive Soap could be the answer. Using the I-Space framework, this article describes the use of Immersive Soaps in eliciting and distributing organizational knowledge.
     
Immersing the Organization
- This article describes the use of Immersive Briefings in an industrial relations setting. It goes on to highlight the benefits organizations can hope to gain through the use of this technology.

[F. Scott Banks]

I hadn't considered the "tabletop" effects of certain discisions on the populations of certain communities.  

That's something I haven't seen employed very often.  For the most part, I try to balance the game in such a way that descisions of one player influence, in real gameplay, the emotions of others.  By making a player's children the future incarnations of the player's active character, I tried to place an inherent importance on taking care of one's children.

But, I'll be looking at these charts in the future.

[Mike Holmes]

There are two considerations here.

First is the genre of play, the idea of playing out military campaigns, etc. Strategy in the sense that this is what generals employ.

The second is the idea of actual player strategy in this game. My question to you is whether or not the game will be gamism supporting? That is, is it about the themes of being a general, or about simulating it in the sense of giving you a real view of what it's like? Or is it about winning by using strategy?

If it's the latter, then I have a whole lot to say. If it's the former, I think you're looking at an area that's very interesting because I don't think it's been done before.

Mike

[Ben O'Neal]

Well, I'm one of the people working with WK on his game, so I can perhaps answer in part.

What we're striving for is "Sim, but only the fun bits". We're not targeting hard-core Simmers who want 385 keyboard combinations for every possible action, and we're equally not targetting point-n-click hack-n-slashers who just want to kill-n-loot (you can get to the point where that's possible, but you still gotta eat, drink, stay healthy, work for your gold, etc). We are including pregancy, but drastically reducing gestation periods and increasing infant growth, as well as abandoning chance of death while giving birth. We have hunger and thirst, but no waste matter. We aren't including sleep (not much fun to play, that), or death by falling off a horse or training accidents. Fun is primary, Sim is secondary, anything that facilitates these things is included, anything that infringes on either one is exluded.

So I guess Mike, if I'm understanding you correctly, it would be the former. Playing as a general doesn't give you any sort of tactical overlay or anything. If you want something to happen, you speak to your officers. Some actual human players might be those officers, and some might even be the footsoldiers on the field. Not every player is a general, so any strategy apparent in the military campaign would be "what the general employed".

Then again, maybe it's the latter, because it's not really gamism supporting. Individual players will very likely have a strong desire to win a war, merely because it's a war and losing has bad consequences, but the game isn't set up to facilitate that. Many decisions both above and below you will be made by the AI or other human players, so even the best laid plans can go awry further down the chain. The themes of being a general may be implicit, but I guess that would have to do with the actual player's interpretations. We can't really code an effect which alters the player's emotions, but they can easily see the desolution and destruction that war brings, how it results in sapping of resources from their homeland, which are then wasted in a field of death, and how people aren't just units which can be pumped out of buildings, because every soldier actually was born, raised, trained, and conscripted like a real person. If a general returns home to find his town empty and poor, then perhaps they will see a theme of how hollow victory really is. But all we can do is lead the horse to the water.

I'm not sure exactly what WK is asking for in this thread, whether he wants real-life strategy theories, or game strategy theories, but the latter would be pretty sparse in their relevance to what we are trying to accomplish, because as far as I know, every computer strategy game ever made has been focused on winning via the best tactics and most player skill (which usually equates to familiarity with the options and speed of deployment).

I hope that's helpful. It'd be easier to contribute if I was clear on what WK wanted from this thread.

-Ben

[Mike Holmes]

Hmmm. I'm pretty sure that I didn't make myself very clear (which isn't unusual). But I, too would like to hear back from him before continuing.

Mike

[F. Scott Banks]

Honestly, in looking at the GNS model and trying to apply it to a digital medium, i've found I'm not terribly limited by "purism".  Not that I've noticed too many designers shackling themselves to the dictums in GNS, the "video game" (let's call a spade a spade) has both more and less freedom with regards to what must be done from a GNS perspective.

This game, like Ravien said, can be pretty muddy when trying to pin it down.  The reason being that all video games, restcted by a need to quantify everything in zeroes and ones, follow the zero sum rule, mentioned in the article epweissengruber offered up.

Basically, there has to be a winner or a loser in video games because otherwise you get this endless expanse of possibility that no designer could control.  Around a gaming table, there are limitations of what can be done because you're playing other human beings.  When you bring a computer into the mix, you're playing with a machine that was built to excell at the very thing you're trying to do.  It's like putting a major league pitcher next to a howitzer and waiting to see who tires out first.

But, we softened that rule.  The game was designed from a RPGers perspective.  That means that winning or losing was relative.  Whichever you feel happened to you, the game keeps on going for everyone else.  When your elven ranger breathes her last, my mage's son is lifting a sword for the first time.

The old rules stop applying.

The old rules of videogames that is.  But even the new rules of GNS soften against this particular design.  A gamist can walk away and say...I went after the white dragon in the crystal caves and I walked out with it's treasure and it's head...I win.  A narrativist will look at their family tree and see a legacy filled with ups and downs, a drama of epic proportions.  A simulationist will see his descisions affecting the lives of other players as they wage war and conscript their sons to battle.

But...that's Advent.  I was actually talking about a simpler military strategy game, playable with regular dice instead of 64-phase algorithims that calculate the effect of a scimitar being wielded by a 4th level black-belt as it cuts into the body of a viking warrior wearing scale mail enchanted by a villiage witch who worships the god of shadows while the viking in question worships the goddess of blood.

I'd love to get into GNS but I never know where to start angling my ideas.  Applying it to an online multiplayer RPG definately gives a new perspective on the old theories.  I even tried my hand at "breaking it down" for game designers, imploring them to give up on "me too" game design and look beyond the current bestsellers.

But...both Advent, with it's burgeoning strategy system, and the stand-alone strategy game I'd like to work on in my copious spare time (all seven minutes of it...ahh to be carefree again), could benefit from some insight on how RPG theory applies to player strategy.  Advent especially because warfare would be the point where I actually stopped considering how the player would try to beat the system.

It wasn't a feature in the beginning.

[contracycle]

I'm still confused.  What is the problem exactly?

There are many strategic games that do not depend on discrete win-loss conditions, mostly those that appear as strategy campaign games.  The only time a purposeful win-loss needs to be established is iof the game is very story-driven and is going to move to the next discrete 'chapter'.

There are two main forms of free-play games: the Elite line of first person experience, and the Civilisation line of top-down strategic decision.  (I class Elite as strategic because of the resource-management/husbandry going on).

The problems inherent to integrating these two games are quite old and have to do with what precisely the player is expected to do in the game.  If the player is expected to act as an animating spirit for their side, like the player of chess, then they need a comprehensive view of the battlefield.  If they are expected to act/experience in first person, then they should only be able to see what they can see from their horse, or whatever.  

A second concern is time-compression; many strategic games occur over long periods of time like decades, while most first-person games occur in real time.  If your strategic decision is to send the 2nd legion to Hibernia and its going to take six months until you can make your next meaningful strategic decision, its not a lot of fun.

Anyway, you are not alone in wanting to develop a game that unifies the first person experience and the strategic experience; I think this is a desire a number of people have because the idea keeps surfacing on a semi-regular basis.

[Mike Holmes]

Yep, I'm with Gareth on this one. Huh?

I'm probably going to regret going off on this tangent, but... computers are even more seriously limited in GNS respects than tabletop games. In all cases.

First, I'm not saying that a narrativism based CRPG can't be made - but none ever have been made that I'm aware of. Not one. Just because theme is created by defeating the white dragon as an outcome of the process of doing so, that doesn't mean that there was any player choice regarding this. For example, can the player choose not to kill the dragon? Can he chicken out? Can he feel for the dragon, and not kill it?

Is he encouraged by the system in any way to do these things? Or is the only support for winning? What is the player rewarded for?

This is not to say that all games must be "pure" in one GNS mode (I'm the orgiginal guy who says that no game is pure). What it does mean is that you're confusing good theme creation of the engine with theme creation by the player. Between Gamism and Narrativism there's no way to encourage both at the same time without problem - you're fooling yourself if you think you can. Rather, you can encourage both, but players can only make one sort of decision at a time. They're mutually exclusive. So, if you try to support more than one at once, at the same time, you're asking for players to find your game schitzophrenic and unapealling.

To give you an example of what I'm talking about, in a system that supports narrativism, the player has to be rewarded at least as well for making tactically bad decisions, as for making tactically sound ones. Again, else the game supports gamism. Is there feedback of any sort that supports making tactically bad decisions in your game? Note that if there's no apparent reward system, but a combat system, then that's gamism because it implies to the player playing to win the combats. So simply not having a reward system is not enough. The action of the game has to revolve around narrativism rewards, or the subject matter has to be narrativism. It's possible to do this with combat, actually, it just can't be about weapon damages or anything of the like. It'd have to be about character emotions or something.

In any case, whether or not I'm correct above, since this is a TT game (right?), then we really do need to consider where the game is regarding this stuff.

But I wouldn't worry about the fact that what you have can't be both gamism and narrativism, because what you're talking about so far seems very solidly gamism based. Which is absolutely fine, I'd just go with that if it's what you want. There's a ton to say on that subject, as I mentioned. Including the gamism results being very thematic, if you like.

If, on the other hand, you want to go with a real narrativism based design, then we're talking about getting into an area of development that's never been tried before. Never. I've postulated such games before, but have never gotten beyond the idea stage. But consider: such a game might have generals with "Values" which are embodied through the decisions they make on the battlefield. Depending on the decisions they make, the generals support certain values, and deny others. For example, your general might have "Honor" as a value, and "Loyalty to Troops," as well. Then he's confronted by the decision to either send his men to certain death to capture the enemy standard, or to let it get away so his men will survive.

No right answer in terms of whether or not the character will win - just a moral choice about what's more important to the general. Just to be clear, I'm not saying that these choices can't have an effect on the outcome of the battle - I'm just saying that either of them should be just as valid as the last. Rather, it's what the player prioritizes that has the effect on the outcome.

This is just one very incomplete vision of how such a game would go. Does it give you an idea of what a "Narrativism Wargame" would be like? Heh, now that I think of it, the "Kobayashi Maru" as written as a test in Star Trek is narrativism - you can't win, you can only decide how you die. Leave it to Kirk to make gamism out of narrativism. ;-)

Mike

[timfire]

Just so y'all know, I've started a thread in the GNS forum to discuss some thoughts related to Nar-facilitating CRPG's.

[F. Scott Banks]

A lot of the confusion probably has to do with the game I'd like to make, and he game I'm currently making.  One is narrative, and the strategy elements of it are also narrative.  The other is not yet defined beyond it's Sci-Fi theme.

Hmmm, I've always wanted to get into GNS and CRPG's, but so far no one's been able to engage me on it.  I end up having to explain GNS to them and they usually lose interest halfway through.

As far as where the lines are drawn, Advent isn't really gamist.  In terms of "gamist", i refer to "gamist" in the sense of computer gamers.  The guys who play for the high score, or to get the most kills.  The RPG definition is usually "powergamers".  It's generally widely accepted that these are "shallow" gamers.  They play to win, usually on their own terms with little regard to any depth the game may have.  If they do play the game to it's fullest, then it's just to get every item, or kill every monster, or expose every secret.  They don't play for the experience of the game, they play for the reward at the end.

I guess if a line in the sand must be drawn, the game is narrative.  It employs gamism elements of "win/loss" and it employs simulationist elements of "that's exactly how it should be", but the overriding theme is unquestionably narrative.  If the main thrust of an RPG is to develop a character, to be the main character in your own private epic, and in this particular RPG, the "character" is not a single individual, but a family, and entire bloodline to weave and shape into a long and rambling tale.

So I guess that would make Advent narrative.

This would make the strategy game that the RPG becomes when warfare is involved narrative as well.  I never considered that strategy isn't usually narrative but this is.  Because the NPC's are player "owned", a military leader arbitrarily waging war is putting the sons and brothers of the player-characters at risk.  If my character's "brother" is called to serve (my active character, being under my direct control, has the choice of not serving...but someone from the family is going) and he dies in combat, I now have to care for his family, raise his children, and perhaps learn his craft and run his shop.

Of course, I could also just let them sleep on the street, but still, it's the choices the military leader made that have put me in this position.  Whether the battle was won or lost, my story has changed because of the conflict.  From a purer narrative perspective, we play to improve our "stories" and sometimes, this worsens the "stories" of others.  Winning and losing becomes relative at best and irrelevant at worst.  Advent isn't gamist because there's no way to win outside of deluding yourself into believing that you've met some victory condition.  Even if you've met some goal that might arguably make you a winner (conquered a nation, defeated some longtime foe, etc.), the character is still going to die and you'll have to start over with their kid.  

And the new character now has to live up to their parents legacy, face their old foes, and do so from a position of inexperience and relative weakness.

It's nearly a soap opera.

With regards to narrative strategy elements, generals do make choices based upon their morals, codes of honor, or religious values.  The greater term for this is "culture".  Along with adding flavor to characters, "culture" is a list of weights that NPC's apply to descisions.  A cleric, finding a wounded man ont he road, would naturally help him.  However, the man is an enemy soldier,  this automatically "weighs" the cleric's desicion to help him to a no because the cleric was rasied with a fierce sense of patriotism that his religion hasn't overcome.  

This doesn't mean that a cleric from a certain culture will never help an enemy, just that it's less likely.  In the same way that the environment has rules that skills can overcome (humns can't fly, but a skilled dragonrider can...with a dragon), culture provides rules that counter-culture overcomes (I was raised to hate my enemies, but the church of Melna teaches us to let go of hate).  Culture has an advantage, but learning new skills and having new experiences as an adult will influence, or even negate the things a player-character is taught as a child.

So there are ways around the limitations of CRPGs.  With Advent, I chose to make a narrative CRPG because everyone said it was impossible.  With this little TT game, I'm honestly not attempting anything quite as ambitious.  Just want to make a balanced and fun Sci-Fi strategy game with military, political, and econimic strategy.

However, with Advent, I'd still like to discuss the barriers inherrent with implmenting narrativism in a CRPG.  When it was initially designed and discussed on the Forge, I didn't know how I'd pull off a narrative MMORPG (a narrative RPG was easy, but making a transition to zeroes and ones requires a level of design of a complexity that I'd underestimated).  Now, I've answered most of the questions that I could come up with and would like to get in-depth with applying GNS to strategy games.

[Mike Holmes]

OK, communications problems here in spades. You're using an entirely different set of terms than I'm used to. That is, until we get on the same sheet of music in terms of what the terms mean, we're just going to talk past each other. For example, Narrativism doesn't have any direct correllation with the term narrative. Advent might be "narrative" by whatever you mean by that, but it's not narrativism by the definition of that term which was invented here. It might not be "gamist" by some definition of yours, but it's definitely gamism from what I can tell per both the Threefold and GNS definitions (and, moreover, here that does't have a negative connotation).

So, I suggest one of three things:
1. We skip using such terms, and try to describe what we mean by them instead. This is a lot of work, but will be a lot clearer.
2. You define your terms so that we understand what you're talking about.
3. You read up on our definition of the terms in the glossary and essays, so you know what we're talking about.

Because, until then we're not going to be able to make any sense to each other. I can guess what you mean, but there'll be nuances that we each don't understand.

Mike

[F. Scott Banks]

Ahhh, I didn't penetrate those articles deeply enough.

No problem though.  The difficulties were in designing the game, not defining it.

I suppose I change my definitions based upon the medium used.  For example, there are elements of the GNS model that will never be applicable to a CRPG, but the larger concepts have a lot of leg room.

I'll re-read those articles (I was on the other end of game design when I first read them...maybe I'll understand them more on a second go-round) but as far as my own definitions go, a "narrative" game (I'll use RPG when I don't mean videogame) is one wherein the game experience is that of completing a story.  Silent Hill is the best example.  Clumsy controls, a bizzare inventory system, and horrendous camera angles actually contribute to the game experience.  

You're not playing a game, you're playing a "story". The purpose isn't "winning", it's finding out how it ends.  This, and many other games that fall into this category usually have multiple endings of varying quality, depending upon the way a character played.  In the case of Silent Hill, the more of the town's secrets you expose, the better your ending.  In fact, if you simply play to get to the end, you'll receive an ending that's possibly worse than getting killed.

Outatowners was an RPG design that played upon this.  The point is to find out what the hell happened so that you can either undo the haunting by putting the spirit to rest, or simply escape the spirit's domain and get to safety.  It probably falls more under the concept of "narrative", because the point is to tell a story (preferrably one wherein your cast member isn't killed by some nameless horror from beyond the grave).  It's not a happy coincidence that happens through gameplay, which is probably where Advent falls short of being narrative.

I think I explained my take on gamism, but since Advent is clearly gamist to you, and only barely gamist to me, I apparently don't get it.  Basically, to me, gamism is any game designed with "win/loss" conditions that override everything else.  The game's setting, story, characters, etc. are all irrelevant compared to the player's skill and the player's ability to play to the letter of the rules and achieve victory.  This is the core of "powergaming", where people play to "win" and the whole character creation, backstory, etc. is unimportant.

We probably agree on Simulationism.  Basically a game where everything takes a "backseat" to the immersion and realism of the game.  My short-order take on Simulation is "Process does matter...a lot".  Simulationist games focus on "getting it right".  This may be overly simplistic, but it's pretty good for a short answer.

But basically, I should describe Advent as a game wherein the purpose is to guide a successive string of characters through a fantasy world in a manner that establishes a "legacy" for that player.  The gameword is persistent and so the goal of living a "successful" life is passed from character to character.

The Sci-Fi game is still pretty much mercenary armies fighting resource wars for interplanetary colonial expansion.  I haven't defined it beyond that.