Good Gamist Deisgn

[quozl]

First, read Mike's rant.

Now, please give good examples on how RPGs have implemented strategy & tactics in play.  Please note that I only wish to examine RPG rules, not roleplaying situations provided by the GM.

Thank you!

[quozl]

So is it as I feared that there are no rpg rules that implement strategy and tactics in play?

[Ben Lehman]

A few games:

D&D 3.0 (can't speak for 3.5) is FAR more strategic than tactical but, for reference, it does include both strategy and tactics.  The most important strategy is selection of feats and class levels for the optimal combination of abilities, particularly in regard to prestige classes.  The tactics enter in the actual, step-by-step combat declaration.  For certain strategies -- say, the rogue -- tactics are very important, but for others -- the spiked chain fighter -- they are vanishingly small.

Riddle of Steel has an amazingly strong tactical engine.  The strategics come from getting the most out of your combat pool, which is complicated (there are a number of ways to do it, and armor penetration + rapier limitations add interesting question marks) but the nitty gritty of the game is in the dice declaration and manuevers of combat.

Vampire LARPs, in the standard political form, are highly strategic, largely on a social level and making sure that your coteries are functional and that you haven't become killable.  There are, however, essentially no tactics, except perhaps in the day to day conversations.

Tactics, the game I am working on, endeavours to be tactical with a small amount of strategy -- the point being that I am not interested in the D&D 3.0 effect where one wrong feat choice can throw off your character's entire developement path and render you, essentially, worthless.

That's a brief review.  There are many more games.

yrs--
--Ben

[LordSmerf]

I'd also toss in a mention of The Burning Wheel as Tactical with a Strategic option.  The Tactical considerations are similar to those found in TRoS (the combat options are quite similar,) but with more guess work since you must script your action without knowledge of your opponent's actions.  Strategy is covered by the stats of equipment (both armor and weapons) as well as by the optional use of Martial Arts Techniques.

An interesting idea i ran into the other day over at the Ad Astra Games forum was the idea of scaling an RPG into a tactical board game.  Essentially the stats of characters plug directly into the boardgame itself (as much as possible) such that the board game actually can be viewed as a set of optional, highly-tactical combat rules.  I'm not sure whether or not this is what you're talking about since it's really more of a product integration, but i thought that i should mention it...

Thomas

[LordSmerf]

After some thought and a reread of Mike's rant i've come up with the following hypothesis:

Tactical games require (maybe "benefit from" is better) equality of information.  In Chess or Go or any other competative board game i can think of each player has knowledge of what's on the board.  Each player also has knowledge of what can be introduced to the board.  It is the combination of these two sets of knowledge that allow tactics.

I can successfully play my strategy in Settlers of Catan by analyzing die probabilities, observing opponents' actions, and predicting what new factors may be brought into play.  If something surprises me it's not because i didn't know that it could happen, it's simply because i didn't think that it would.

The problem with most RPGs is that with the GM having the ability to introduce new obstacles whenever the need (or simply the perverse desire) arises makes it impossible for me to accurately predict what might happen.  In a game of Chess i know that you have a rook, a knight, two bishops, and three pawns.  I don't believe that you will sacrifice that knight for one of my five pawns, but you might.  In an RPG, if you were the GM, it's possible that you might just plop a queen down on the board.  There is no way for me to plan for this, so whenever this kind of thing happens i will feel rather put out.

Even with a GM who is trying to be "realistic" to the situation things aren't smooth.  The problem is that you and i will have different interpretations of what is and is not "realistic."

Now, my problem with you just throwing a new queen on the board would probably be mitigated if we were playing Bugout (Siamese Chess) and i saw that you had a Queen on your side board.  In this case the rules specifically allow you to place a queen on the board.

The solution, it seems to me, is some sort of limiter on what the GM can and can not do.  If you have 10 "do-stuff points" and it takes two of them to create a challenging enemy then i know that i won't face more than five challenging enemies.  It seems that this may come into conflict (as i believe has been said before) with Simulationism because it may make sense for me to face 10 challenging enemies instead.

I'm going to toy with the numbers a bit i believe, maybe i can come up with something interesting.

Thomas

[Thierry Michel]

Please note that I only wish to examine RPG rules, not roleplaying situations provided by the GM.

Impossible, I would say.

Think of historical miniatures, for instance. Players invest in numerous and expensive miniatures to make their armies fight each other. Rules are cheap, so many rules exist (I can name at least 4 off the top of my head) and ultimately it is the situation that makes the games tactical, not the exact resolution mechanism.

Or take a look at ...hmmm... Diplomacy ;) - plenty of strategy, some limited tactics, yet it's all in the board, not in the rules.

[greyorm]

As I mentioned in Mike's rant thread, Orx implements tactical, Gamist-lovin' options by providing a clear view of the field for both player and gamemaster.

Each "side" has outright stated goals -- the gamemaster's is to kill the orcs by reducing their stats; the players' is for the orcs to survive -- limited, visible resources -- for orcs, this is their Stats and Descriptors; for the gamemaster, it is his Scene and Fate dice -- and clear options.

The players can work to keep the gamemaster from gaining more dice (and thus beating them more quickly/easily), but have to balance their actions in this regard: confounding the gamemaster in the long run results in a decreased chance of success in the short term.

The gamemaster's ability to heinously slaughter the orcs at any given time is restricted by their need to work up to that point through saving dice and clever tactical plays on their part playing dice against dice.

[quozl]

As I mentioned in Mike's rant thread, Orx implements tactical, Gamist-lovin' options by providing a clear view of the field for both player and gamemaster.

This does sound the best submitted here so far.  So can I get a good look at Orx or do I need to wait?

[greyorm]

I will be releasing a preview chapter sometime after the holidays, but Orx itself is coming out this spring (exact date TBA), so you'll have to wait to competely satisfy your curiousity more fully 'til then!

There are some older free versions floating around on the web, if you can find them, but they lack most of the alterations to the system made in the last year (from playtests and system balancing).

[quozl]

Why did this get moved to the GNS forum?  I just want examples of good gamist design!  Mike mentioned that were a few good designs in his rant but so far has declined to mention them.  I really don't consider the choosing of classes and feats good strategic design and am unsure what about Burning Wheel and Riddle of Stell give good tactics design since I have neither of those games.

[Mike Holmes]

First, I did mention TROS. In some ways I think it's the best example of an elegant system that provides a lot of tactical challenge. And I think that challenge is all in the selection of maneuvers and dice. This leaves a lot of permutations.

I've played Burning Wheel, and while not as elegant, it has a bewildering array of potential tactics in terms of scripting. My favorite part was just trying to decide what my character was going to say in combat. The scripting reminds me of the game Gladiator (used to come with Circus Maximus), which was also a very tactical game. I haven't even really gotten into the magic of BW yet, so I can't even comment on how much that likely adds to the situation.

The class/feat thing is quite strategic. Players are constantly looking to maximize the character's overall effectiveness, and also to broaden effectiveness at the same time. Do I take a class that another character has, in order to be a backup to that effectiveness? Or do I maximize my primary effectiveness? Is there a class available that does a little of both? Can I gain extra effectiveness by crossing my capabilities? How do the Feats "stack" in terms of effectiveness? Etc, etc. May not be perfect, but I don't think many other games have as extensive a set of choices on the strategic planning end.

Again, I can't mention how much adding whole additional dimensions can add to choice. Many players seem not to like the "Miniatures rules" for D&D, but any time you add actual movement to combat, you multiply the tactical choices. Again D&D3E may not do this perfectly, but it does do it. Hero System does some quirky things here, and even GURPS does some interesting things (+3 to dodge if you give ground; hmmm, sounds something like an Evade from TROS). In fact, TFT was a highly tactical game for all it's primitiveness, mainly because of movement.

Interestingly, however, movement is often the first thing to go. I think that's because people feel that having Pawns on the board just detracts too much from immersion. But I digress. In discussing the ideas of "social combat" something that I'd really like to see would be rules that parallel combat movement rules. That is, so far, really, all mechanical Gamism really comes down to combat. I'd like to see us not only develop better Gamist rules, but for areas other than combat, too.

Games like Aftermath! have loads of strategy in terms of civilization building, for instance. Your combat effectiveness will be greatly increased if you can find a shell loading kit and can make your own ammo for your guns, but you'll only be able to do that if you have someone who knows how, etc. Is that sort of strategic play interesting on the macro level? Well, that's another issue. But it does provide a model, and I'm wondering how Bruce Baugh's new Gamma World rules about communities do in this regard?

Rune is quite interesting from a strategic POV, especially in terms of the player design of the adventures for their compatriots. A real twist. Probably not what most people think of in terms of gamist challenge in an RPG, but a good one.

People point to T&T's saving rolls. While I like the idea behind them, I think that the only challenge involved is getting the GM to allow you to use a high score to make the roll. More social than tactical (though that can be Gamist sorta, too).


Many, many games out there have one or two interesting twists that make them interesting in small areas. For example, the couple of phased initiative systems that are being discussed out there remind me of some games that have challenge through this sort of detail. The problem with these is that, once you've gone through that part of the challenge, the strategies soon become pretty well established in terms of what supports the less interesting areas of resolution. Which means that they go from being interesting to boring quite quickly. So, even when there is this one interesting thing, it doesn't make for a system that's interesting overall.

In Angbad (the text CRPG), for instance, there are myriad weapon types with differing weights and therefore speeds in use and damages. The best weapon is the rapier, because you can get 3 attacks with it in a turn if you're really strong. While there are weapons that can do 3 times as much damage, the real benefit is being able to use your strength and other damage bonuses three times as often. So, what looks to be an interesting tactical decision turns out to be made moot by another mechanic that's much more prosaic, yet related. How could this be changed into a better strategic decision? Lots of possibilities, like having them work differently against different armor classes. If the rapier wasn't so good against heavy armor then it would become a strategic decision again.

Rolemaster is an example of how what seems to be a tactical consideration is destroyed by the fact that there's a dominant strategy (q.v. Game Theory). In RM, you are allowed to transfer whatever points you like from your Offensive Bonus to your Defensive Bonus. This means that you have quite a large theoretical lattitude in choice for attack and defense (with an OB of 99 you have 100 choices). The problem is that, in play it turns out that the best defense is a good offense. That is, the book says that "only fools and berzerkers make all out attacks". But the advantages are indisputable. If you go first, then you always attack all out because, at worst, the opponent will defend all out and cancel you out, leaving himself with little or no attack back. At best, he'll defend with, say, half, and you'll mow him down. Even if you only score a Stunned, he doesn't get to attack back. If you score two rounds of stun, you can attack all out without repercussion next round. It's just the winning strategy if you have initiative. So what at first looks like an interesting tactical consideration turns out to have a simple dominant strategy.

OK, so now I've gone off again on systems that have done a bad job. But really my point is that there are few systems that have done anything like a good job, historically. Mainly because, after 1980, Gamism was considered something to be expunged from most games in favor of Sim. So, when Gamism is in there, it's almost always messed up by some combination with Sim ("trying to get players to react realistically").

The good news is that this leaves the field wide open, IMO. And, as was said in the other thread, if you want ideas, don't look at RPGs, look at other games that are really challenging, and figure out how to get those ideas over to RPGs.

Mike

[Mike Holmes]

Oh, one more thing.

Having an open playing field, as I've said, isn't a panacea. Yes, the players need to have some information upon which to make decisions. But for a really challenging game, they should have lots of information, but much of it should be incorrect, or partial. That is, interpolating date from hidden sources is often one of the most challenging parts of Gamist design.

So, sure, give information where it helps create a challenge. But better yet, find a way to give only part of the picture.

Mike

[quozl]

First, thank you Mike for replying!

First, I did mention TROS. In some ways I think it's the best example of an elegant system that provides a lot of tactical challenge. And I think that challenge is all in the selection of maneuvers and dice. This leaves a lot of permutations.

This sounds to me like Rock-Paper-Scissors.  Is it actually tactical or would random selection produce just as good results?

As for strategy being the maximizing of effectiveness, isn't it a little lame when the GM can just see what you're not effective at and just throw that at you?  I think I agree with greyorm when he says the GM must be limited in order for there to be real strategic options.

I agree with you wholeheartedly that tactics needs movement and position rules.  Miniatures are definitely the way to go there.

Your last post is interesting.  Would a gamist game be more strategic and tactical if the GM also had only partial information about the characters?

[Caldis]

I've found Gurps to have excellent tactical options when using the advanced combat rules, a battlemat and miniatures.    Plus with gurps you can create a wide range of capable characters that are still likely to have some kind of weakness, a fair amount of strategy.    It's not really gamist but I think you could have a fair amount of fun just creating characters and running the combats.

[Ben Lehman]

First, I did mention TROS. In some ways I think it's the best example of an elegant system that provides a lot of tactical challenge. And I think that challenge is all in the selection of maneuvers and dice. This leaves a lot of permutations.

This sounds to me like Rock-Paper-Scissors.  Is it actually tactical or would random selection produce just as good results?

BL>  Not a vast amount of time to comment, but:  Not at all.  Riddle of Steel has no hidden information (Or, it can, but usually doesn't.)  The attacker delcares attack, and the defender declares defense.   The tactics is in resource marshalling, not guesswork.

I would also think that tactics does not require positioning, but that positioning often engenders tactics.  Tactics can also emerge for resource marshalling and meaningful guesswork (above and beyond RPS).  Does that make any sense?  RoS has lots of tactics with no simulation of realspace "positioning," although it wouldn't be hard to graft on.

yrs--
--Ben