Gradual Party Destruction

[Simons]

[Callan S.]

Hi Simon,

You only want them to survive for N sessions? Does that have to be brought about by weakening. Can't you just write down the number of sessions they play in, they are the same strength in each and then on N, boom, gone? Or do you want them to actually die during a session on session N? You could still do that without complex weakening rules.

If weakening is the big thing, you could have weakening rules but the potential rewards (like you mentioned gathering X amount of gold before the end) are multiplied slightly out of proportion to the weakness. This makes the game harder, but the rewards higher. Ie, the opportunity to meet that gold target is even closer, but your weakened. Increasingly high stakes play.

[Simons]

[BlackTerror]

I don't think you'd have to worry about #1, as long as you make it very clear in the rules that characters will be dying, possibly early and probably often. Wargamers don't have any qualms about losing units, after all.

For #2, preventing escalating spirals for victory or defeat are generally the domain of positive and negative feedback. Positive feedback rewards winning, in some way or another, helping small-scale victories to push forward into a final win; negative feedback punishes winning, so that past successes increase the difficulty of achieving future successes. For a simple example, more successful groups could get more equipment to help them win, while winning pits them against stronger foes (and losing, against weaker foes, like a kind of tournament system) making it harder for them to win.

Most successful games use both, one or the other affecting a given component of the system. I've seen a lot of writing on feedback loops in game design, so it shouldn't be too hard to find detailed descriptions. Here's one such article, on a computer game theory site, but entirely applicable to paper games.

[Callan S.]

Simons proposal is that your major goal isn't to win each session, its to win some grander goal. Quoting him

such as, for example, gather enough gold or win enough honor

Simon: I'd recommend clarity that otherwise people are going to 'win' a session, get hit with weakening and go 'aww, you get punished for winning' when they haven't won anything yet - you only win by meeting the grand goals you outlined.

In terms of weakening, I think a simple yet interesting design is if the characters have special abilties they can draw on X number of times - and this number never refreshes. Eventually you'll have no special tricks, nothing.

[David Artman]

Funnily enough, I have thought of running a (one-shot) "RPG" similar to this, using Mage Knight Clix (a game which usually encodes weakening into the basic damage mechanic, if you're not familiar with Clix):

Each player builds an "army" of about 300 points, BUT one figure must have at least 150-200 of those points--the idea is that they pick a "hero" or "major" unit and then round it out with "henchmen" or "minions" or "pets." To control healers, I only allow them to use healing in combat (not between encounters, which would let them re-heal to full every fight). Otherwise, same rules as in Mage Knight, regarding number of actions per turn, though I have to add something for initiative/turn order (thinking: die roll + current Speed value of the "hero" figure = initiative).

Then, I use some old D&D module series that's designed to carry a party from, say, level 5 to 12 (Ex: Queen of the Demonweb Pit). Obviously, I'd have to be fairly creative with my Clix substitutes for the D&D encounters, but all other content would play as written: solving puzzles, etc. As the group of armies adventures, they are getting beaten up AND they never "advance," so the later encounters should be... tough... to say the least (lethal is more likely).

Basically, I was going for a "competitive" form of RPG: they are, ostensibly, working together, exploring, solving puzzles, talking to NPCs, killing and looting... but the "winner" is the person with the highest remaining points at the end, adjusted for damage (pro rated based on value of unit / number of clicks on its dial). I *did* expect a point to occur (hopefully nearer the end of the run) where all bets would be off and the backstabbing would begin.

Now, if your interest is in innovating your own system, cool. But the above is about a five sentence "supplement" for playing Mage Knight (or Horror Clix, maybe, for your purposes) as an encounter, dungeon-crawl, survival-type of game.

Of course... it ain't a CHEAP way to play it. Some current prices:
* Potomac Distribution, Lancers Case (192 figures, 1/4 of which are mounted figures, being "Lancers" series): $129 ($4 over PD's minimum order, free shipping)

* eBay - dacardworld, Pyramids Case (192 figures, 48 treasure chests): $28 + $15 for shipping
* eBay - dacardworld, Minions Case (192 figures, some nice uniques): $37 + $15 for shipping (Wow!!! I might buy those....)

Keep in mind that there are Mage Knight and Mage Knight 2 figures, which are (generally) compatible. MK (1) figures are, obviously, the cheaper ones than MK 2 (which adds a LOT of extra mechanics, and the commensurate flexibility/complexity).

Hope this helps--maybe you could figure out a way to do the "Clix-style RPG" that would let folks invent their own "dials" and generally add more in the way of situational stuff ("skills").
David

[Nathan Weston]

What if the surviving members of the party got stronger after each session, but the game was designed so that some party members would usually die? Then you'd have a reward for winning, but also a mechanism for slowly wiping out the whole group. The overall strength/effectiveness might trend up or down, depending on the rates of individual advancement/death, but the party would eventually be destroyed.

Another nice thing is that the stakes get higher in every session. Early in the game, it's no big deal to lose a few characters, you have plenty and no individual is very valuable. But later in the game, you only have a few units, and each one is very powerful (and possibly very specialized, filling a unique role in the party). So you really don't want to take any losses, but the design of the game is going to force you to risk those units because you're fighting equally dangerous opponents.

When you said "groups of mercenaries and adventurers getting dropped on an island, and have to fight their way out", I immediately thought of action/survival type movies like Aliens or Predator. You start off with a large cast of characters, who slowly get whittled down until only the major characters remain -- but the survivors are tough enough to take on the baddies and win. In a game, you could accomplish this in two ways -- either you start the game with a mix of grunts just waiting to be killed off, and heroes who are destined to survive. Or you start off with all grunts, and the grunts who live get stronger, so by the end the few survivors are pretty tough.

Avoiding the death spiral could still be tricky, though. Is each player controlling a whole party? How many players would you have? What are the victory conditions for each session?

Here's one variation that I think might work: you have 2+ players, each controlling a party of mercenaries, and a GM who controls monsters or other indigenous threats. During each session, you'd have a particular objective, like driving all the monsters from an area, capturing a piece of treasure, etc. You could also have some secondary rewards/resources that could be collected along the way. The players then have a choice between cooperating against the GM and sharing the resources, or competing and trying to keep all the resources for themselves. Some primary objectives might lend themselves more toward one or the other. The important thing here is that there's a way to end the session, and even "win" in the short term, without wiping out the other side.

Then you have two end-games: either an attrition scenario, where everyone is eventually wiped out, or some final victory condition (like escaping from the island). Ideally, the final victory can only be achieved by one player. So you have this tension throughout the game, where short-term cooperation is good for everyone, but you also have some incentive to backstab the other guy and improve your chances at the end.

Does that sound like the kind of thing you're looking for?

[Simons]

[Nathan Weston]

Another way to avoid the death spiral is to have some sort of negative feedback for victory (or positive feedback for defeat). For example, you could award bonus experience points to surviving characters based on how many of their teammates were killed. So if you suffer a bad defeat in an early battle, your remaining guys get stronger to even things out.

For this to work, though, you'd probably need multiple reward mechanisms -- such as "experience points" which you can spend to improve your characters, and "victory points" which contribute directly to long-term victory in the game.

[David Artman]

...too high of a casualty ratio to not have characters heal between games

Just to clarify, units may not use Heal BETWEEN combats, but they may always use it DURING combat, if they have the ability and the Action Points and are willing to take the action. The point is that Healing becomes a significant decision (being a drain on action) rather than an automatic, banal "tank up to full" between every fight.

Remember how dungeon crawling used to work: go as far and deep as possible before you have to retreat to town to dump loot, recharge, heal, etc? I'm bring that back with MK figs, but there is no "retreat to town": each player's Hero and minions go until they're dead or until everything in the dungeon is dead... much like you're describing for your game idea.

Anyhow, just wanted to clarify--
David

[LandonSuffered]

I was drawn to the subject line. : )

Have you never played Blood Bowl<Is it fun? <How to prevent a win spiral?  Put a cap on the amount that can be won/lost per game session, OR make every party win/lose the same amount of points/bennies REGARDLESS of battle outcome.  That way every party starts on equal footing each battle (the strategy comes from allocation of skill/experience points, but every party is degrading at the same rate).

How do other games deal with breakage and character death?   LOTS <Example #1<Example #2<Example #3<How many games to finish the campaign?  This is a matter of personal taste. Mordheim <Siege of the Citadel (Mutant Chronicles) board game/strategy game.  Its ten missions are just about right.