Gradual Party Destruction

[Simons]

Hey all,

I've posted here twice before, and it's been helpful.  Anyway, the game I'm working on now is called Game X (or at least this is the working title until I can think of something better).  I'm intending it to be a fantasy skirmish game, but more or less I'm designing it to be based around pairs of typical (or atypical) RPG parties doing battle.  Is this something I should be posting here?  (I know this is mainly for RPGs, although I figure this is close enough, and seeing as how I know I've seen things like CCG questions here...)  I've also been posting questions to bgdf.com, though I feel like this particular topic is more appropriate here. 

In addition to being a strategy game, I want Game X to have rules for campaign play (if I can't get them to work, or to be interesting, I'll leave them out, but they're one of my goals).  I know this isn't true for all games, but generally whenever a person is playing some kind of RPG or fantasy campaign game, their characters and party usually get stronger after each game.  For example, when I've played Necromunda, I'm not sure if I've ever had loss that caused my gang rating to reduce (most people I've talked to can name only 1 or 2).  So, I had a thought: what would it be like if the party, on average, got weaker after every game?  Or if not weaker, then at least closer to complete destruction?  My idea was that on average a party could only survive N games, however the desire is not to have a party that lasts forever, but rather to reach some external boundary (such as, for example, gather enough gold or win enough honor).  The idea is that most groups will not survive to that point, however with enough skill and luck it is very possible. 

So, I have four questions about this:
1) Does this sound like a good (or a fun) idea?  Or, do people become too attached to their characters to take losing them?
2) How do I accomplish this without having some kind of death spiral, where the player who wins the first game will win all remaining games?
3) How do other games deal with armor and weapons breaking, and how do they deal with character death and recovery?  More than anything I want something simple, but am curious what others have done on this subject, and what people think has gone either well or badly.
4) In a skirmish game like this, how many games would you want to keep the same party for (like, how many before it becomes boring)?  Currently a typical game lasts about 2 hours, though it wouldn't surprise me if it will eventually take less. 

As to #2, my thought on this would first be that each group has some starting number of characters, but can only use like half of them in any game.  This gives them a little bit of a buffer, so that if 4 characters die in the first game you can still field a full army in the next (however if 4 die in the next, you're kind of screwed).  Also, I've considered having an advancement system where after each game players can choose to heal their party, advance them, or search for treasure (more on this in another advice column, maybe, first I want to just see if the concept works).  One other thought is that there is a gradual progression to death (i.e. if your character dies in one battle, he is fine.  If twice, he gains a minor ability penalty.  If three times, a major ability penalty, and the fourth time he's gone for good), so that it takes a few losses before penalties really begin kicking in.  Do any of these seem like they would work?  Are there obvious problems they would create?

If there's anything more about the game that would help in this discussion, please let me know.  Thanks in advance!

Simon

[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]

Hi Callan,

Good questions.  So, my idea was that characters would actually die on the Nth game, mostly.  In games like D&D, Necromunda, and WOW, you pretty much continue to grow indefinitely, generally until you become bored with it.  In this, I want the game to end either with the party retiring gloriously, or being wiped out.  I don't want it to always be precisely N games (i.e. a stupid pig-headed general can easily run his army into the ground in a game or two).  I guess I want N to just be an approximate number, like parties will often survive for 8-12 games, or 4-6 or something, and have it vary depending upon how many risks a player takes. 

I guess part of it is that I want to put a feeling of desperation in my game.  My story will have a lot to do with groups of mercenaries and adventurers getting dropped on an island, and have to fight their way out.  So, with that I do feel like I want weakening rules.  I want you to feel that your group becoming closer and closer to the edge, so that you can't screw around. 

And I do like the high risk = high rewards idea.  I think I'll try to put something about that in it. 

Simon

[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]

Let's see, in response to questions/comments:
The basic organization for this game will have no GM, and each player controls one entire party.  In each battle, parties battle other parties, rather than some outside forces (at least this is the idea for now).  So, I don't really have a way of pitting strong parties against stronger foes (this is why I need to keep characters from gaining a runaway strength).  Players play each other, pretty much whenever they want to, with no real order or organization.  Each player plays until their party dies, or escapes victoriously, without any real limits on how many people can "win."  When this happens, a player just makes a new party.  This pretty much continues indefinitely, until the players get sick of playing. 

I don't really have victory conditions yet.  Basically, either you annihilate your enemy, or beat him until he retreats (part of the strategy, hopefully, is that players will decide when a battle is no longer winnable).  In part I've never liked games with artificial victory conditions (for example, fight until you have destroyed X% of your enemy), although I've been starting so see their benefit.  I'm debating whether variation in scenarios will need to include things which grant tactical advantages in a battle (i.e. capture the pool of healing).  This is something I'm still working on. 

Callan, I like the idea of having traits with limited uses.  I'm kind of wondering now if this game would have been better as science fiction, because there you could really incorporate things like limited ammo.  I have always thought that the trade-off between sustainability and immediate survival was an interesting one, and will try to incorporate that at least some. 

David, that actually sounds like a really cool idea for a game, however I'm not sure well it would work in my game (amongst other things, too high of a casualty ratio to not have characters heal between games). 

And Nathan, I suppose the movie idea is actually pretty close to what I was going to (although, recently I've been seriously considering something more like, for lack of better example, the X-Men movie series, where you have all these characters that are mostly fine for a while, with a few losses here and there, and then get killed in huge numbers in the end).  However there was a worry with either idea.  The first time I told this idea to a friend, he said gave me this worst-case-scenario about in the first game, player A has an overwhelming victory against player B (and thus player A gets stronger and player B gets weaker).  Because of this, player A's party is much stronger than player B's (more experience, fewer character deaths), and can use this to gain a major advantage in future games.  I guess that was my main worry about how to stop that from happening?

So I guess the other question I've been wondering about is whether to use weapon/equipment damage.  Originally, I thought defiantly yes, though now I'm not so sure.  Does this seem like it would add on another layer of desperation, or just be annoying?  Do you have advice on a way to make it more than just an annoyance?  Also, I have only had very limited experience with weapon damage (the only examples I can think of are Doom- where weapons are good for X attacks, D&D- where you basically need to attack the weapon, and Necromunda- where every attack gives a small chance of breaking).  I'm curious what other systems are out there, and if there are other games I could study to get ideas? 

Thanks to everyone.  This has actually been quite helpful as a way to organize my thoughts.  You guys rock!

Simon

[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?  Under the 3rd edition rules, each player's team would get severely whittled down every game, although the survivors (win or lose) would gain strength through experience.  Teams that win (i.e. score more touchdowns) in general gain more points than the team that loses. 

Here's my direct answers to your questions:

Is it fun?   To a point...traditional BB leagues showed that some coaches simply withdraw once they suffered 2 or 3 bad losses; few people with competitive egos (the type o players who'd want to play this kind of game) enjoy continuous ass-kickings.

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 of ways; more than can be listed.  I'd suggest picking a theme for your game and sticking with it.  Example #1: In the last days of the planet Entross, the knowledge for repairing equipment has disappeared and players can only use what they can scavenge...after each battle, choose X suits of armor to deteriorate 1 armor point and Y number of weapons to become corroded (losing 1 point from damage and to hit chances).  Example #2: The Vampire-Gods of Hule pit gladiators against each other in celebration of their power and mastery over mortals...as a bond of fellowship, each owner chooses one gladiator to sacrifice to the his worth opponent (much like soccer players change jerseys). Example #3: The League of Old Warriors gives aged veterans a chance to re-live their glory days against fellows of the same caliber, but old bones don't heal like young bones...after each battle, all warriors choose a permanent penalty to Strength, Agility, or Cunning to represent the stress of age (on the other hand, all wounds sustained in battle are healed by the Retirement Home Apothecaries!).

How many games to finish the campaign?  This is a matter of personal taste. Mordheim games are quick enough that you can play two or three in a single evening, and I never get bored with them.  It depends on how many options are available (different missions, different skills, different party-types, different terrain set-ups).  The other factor is dissatisfaction with losing...some players will get tired of the game after getting whupped two or three times in a row.  Personally, I'd shoot for 9 or 10 games being the maximum limit.  But that's just me.  Check out the Siege of the Citadel (Mutant Chronicles) board game/strategy game.  Its ten missions are just about right.