So me and a couple of guys (Calling ourselves Hour11 Games) have been working on a game for a little over a year and I was wondering what people's thoughts were a few ideas.  I'm a long time Pen and Paper RPG player and miniature wargame player.  I find neither satisfies me completely (hence why I play both).  So the premise of the game is to incorporate the individuality, psychology, and freedom of RPG style characters (read: as complete a human as a piece of paper and an imagination can imbue) into the format of tabletop miniature skirmish (no more than 5 units per side). 

  I'm talking about a very in depth character creation process where a detailed past and personal psychology determines the abilities (learned skills) and mental quirks (greediness, a fear of being alone) of a unit on the game board.  It tweaks the skirmish away from a victory based experience to a zero sum story creation.  Example: even if the best strategic maneuver is for a unit to attack from the top of the cliff, that units fear of heights should determine what they Would do, not what they Should do. 

  This is also involves adding a multitude of actions into the character's options (providing a character as unlimited a level freedom as we can) beyond just move and attack.  Scenarios are never just 2 groups battling to the death, there is always a goal and a dramatic mechanism (dramatic mechanism meaning time limits, switches that control distant doors requiring cooperation between team units and a chance to lock out the opponent moments before their victory is assured, etc.).

  The question is: do you feel a system like this will just alienate both types of players, or is a synthesis like this one that will open new doors?  Also, is this just barking up a tree that can be had by removing some RPG elements from pen and paper games that have miniature rules, or is there potential in a system designed exclusively around telling stories strategically and centered on the freedom of the gamer?

Apologies if that ran on a little long.

Hi H11,

I'm not sure I'd call a fear of heights character. That's more like a plot device. If the optimal solution was to carpet bomb some spot, but it'd kill some civilians and my character is not that ruthless so he does not take the carpet bomb option, to me that seems like character. Heck, a teacher at my childs school pitched to the kids what would you do if you had a choice between saving a very old man or your expensive car from destruction (by oncoming train). That seems like character, to me. That said, nor do I think switches needing to be flipped are dramatic in themselves. I think moral issues and whether someone would transgress one personal value for the preservation of another personal value, is dramatic. But that's my sense of dramatic.

As said, to me character is about what personal moral rules the character will break, in order to preserve another moral rule. BUT the way some people game, morality is fixed - a 'good' person does X, Y and Z and a player who would break X to preserve Y is actually playing the game wrong (could be said to be just plain cheating). Which one would you be using? For example, a character with a fear of heights - the player does have him fight at the top of the cliff, because it's the only way he can save the civilians in time. Cheating? Or character portrayal/story?

I fully understand, I was just trying to represent the simplest of possible things for the sake of not over complicating my post.  Yeah, we have a sort of alignment worked in, relationship based traits to account for friendships and love between units (ways of dealing with the loss of a companion, etc), a variety of ways for characters that morally would not kill to incapacitate or avoid the violence, etc.  That's what's taking so long in even getting to a playtestable state, pages and pages of "humanizing" traits and the like.

Go ahead with this concept.

I've had a very similar project on my backburner for a couple of years...every now and then I come back to it...work on it a bit...then the ideas spins off into a full fledged miniatures game, or a roleplaying game. I'm still struggling with the balance between the two.

I love the idea of characters in a platoon acting against the orders of their leader because it goes against their morality, or puts them into situations that scare them.

With this in mind, make sure you have a look at a few of the recent miniatures games coming out of smaller companies. Malifaux from Wyrd Games comes to mind; there are some great ideas for scenario driven play in that one, where different teams can be working toward completely unrelated goals (and some of those goals are completely hidden from the other player), but it still becomes a part of the game to prevent an opponent from reaching their goals (even if you don't know what those goals might be).