So I've been eying my newly-acquired copy of Hero Wars, and thinking about a concept used in the game's Extended Contests (big, important conflicts use these, as opposed to a simple, single die roll): the concept of Action Points (now called Hero Points in the new edition).
So. Action Points.
Basically, these represent your overall mojo, combining ability, equipment, emotional investment in the conflict, positioning, tactics, allies(!), etc., all thrown together in a single numerical value. It's, overall, how well you're doing.
Here's the kicker: you don't lose until you are completely out of Action Points. And by "don't lose", I mean you basically don't suffer any just-you-personal consequences until this point is reached. Heck, you can even bet a few points to possibly gain a bunch back, and then you're still in it!
That bit about not losing? It means that, in a combat Extended Contest, you don't get wounded in any meaningful way (beyond a cut or a bruise) until you run out of APs. This is that kind of thing I was trying to achieve in Mask of the Emperor, the idea that you have to corner your opponent (verbally, physically, whatev) before landing a blow on them, as befits actual fighting between actual fighters.
[ready, go, tangent!] Even if you skewer a guy on your sword pretty quickly, there are probably a few shield-blocks, parries, dodges, and feints that happen first. If not, then the scenario would probably consist of your (apparently masterful) swordsman facing multiple foes, and stuff. The point is that I think it makes total sense to have some back and forth in a conflict before anything decisive happens.
Anyway.
APs.
So - you run out of APs, and THEN you get your hand severed, or the baroness throws her drink in your face, or whatever. As this Forge forum thread reminds us, you can get down to 1 AP and still pull off a win, and then keep your hand or your dignity intact.
I think that's pretty damn cool. One thing it doesn't do (potentially) is account for Pyrrhic victories, a la Otherkind. We shall see if that's the case, and if it matters, the effect that that has on things, etc.
I can see the logic behind it, though - both the Intact Skin approach (one guy wins and one guy loses, cut and dried) and the Mel Gibson approach (a la any movie he's ever been in where there is violence, and his character gets an ass-whupping even if he wins the day) have their merits. The former pushes for a vision of combat as either deadly OR merely "to the blood" - different rolls and results will of course dictate how that goes, and I betcha the Extended Contest result table has some kind of "you both suck" result. Alternately, in social conflict, the former approach would suggest a sort of "you end up looking awesome, handing someone's ass to them as well as looking good to passersby". This approach seems to suggest that once things start tipping in your favor, they keep going that way, OR you get a very clean reversal - again, you don't get chopped up until you totally, definitely lose, although you might take some light flesh wounds and your followers might all die (I'm thinking Braveheart, where Mel takes a couple arrows to the chest at Falkirk but then gets back up and rides after King Edward. 'cause, you know, whatever).
The latter approach suggests that combat is a bloody affair, and arguments make everyone involved look bad - in the case of violence, there's that old saw that people wear armor because you can't swordfight without getting chopped up once in a while. In the case of social conflict, it's possible that browbeating, haranguing, or otherwise nailing someone's verbal ass to the wall has lots of fallout and makes you look like a tool. This approach is one of "you have to give it to get it" - if you want something, you're going to have to crawl through crap to ensure that it's yours.
Oddly enough, both of these approaches expect and demand a lot of risk-taking: these aren't conservative strategies by any stretch. The former, in particular, could be very see-saw-y: win big or lose big! The latter, at least, lets you get mangled up a bit and maybe decide that you concede, after all, having reached your depth.
Things to think about and research, at any rate.
Oh, one last thought: the Otherkind mechanic exists to draw in more conflict like a fisherman's net, grabbing problems and pulling them towards the PCs. The Hero Whatever mechanics may or may not really do that, and seem a good deal more trad win/lose in that respect. They let you handle a conflict that arises, rather than find one for you. Maybe. We'll see.
My intention is to finish up Questing Beast soon (I'm done meandering...) and then get folks in the group to check out Hero Wars. Hotnessss! Character creation flowcharts await!
[Edit] Quick, last-last thought: Extended Contests and Otherkind do something similarly - in the Braveheart scene I mentioned, the EC is arguably resolving the entire battle! Let's go with that. The Scots get flanked by English reserves, the film personalizes this reversal through Willaim Wallace (his facial expressions, his arrow wounds), and then the battle's outcome is personified through William alone - he gets on his horse (while the Scots try to rally alongside their newfound Irish allies) and rides after King Edward, only to have the (surprise!) turncoat Robert the Bruce joust him right off his fucking horse. He lies there in the dirt; the contest is over.
ECs handle this by saying "hey, look at it go back and forth, with the English steadily widening the AP gap". Each reversal is exciting, and roleplayed to the hilt because we care, and when it's over, the Bruce helps William into the arms of an Irish rescuer; that's all post-EC developments. It's all important, yeah, but it's probably "off the map", i.e. it's devised by fiat, by on the spot creativity, without interacting with dice mechanics.
Otherkind dice handle things in general as jumping-off points for more and more conflict; it seems like conflicts are less officially "happening" and "not happening", given that, quite clearly, each roll of the dice can lead into more and more problems and complications. It's like the EC system says "ok, we're in conflict now", while O says "okay, roll. Okay, five more things go wrong. Okay.... roll again. Repeat."
The real difference might be that O sort of checks in with the players more often and says "ok, hey, here's some consequences. At least in terms of handling time (huge difference, no doubt), O gives us resolution pretty quickly. If what you're looking for is a lot of back and forth, then EC might be the way to go. If you're looking for really punchy, pithy moments that cause the plot to pivot, then O might do it.
O seems more suited for gunshots, sudden bursts of action that die down quickly, that sort of thing, the kinds of decisions one makes rashly and quickly regrets, whereas Hero Wars is pushing a sort of more nuanced, you've-got-time-to-think back and forth thing, like a fencing match.
Not that one or the other can run situations or scenarios that the other couldn't; I'll report back when I discover what's better at what!
[EDIT EDIT] Apparently in both Simple and Extended Contests, if both sides roll badly enough (technically, you roll against a Target # and THEN compare to your opponent), both sides can screw the pooch. So to speak.
Showing posts with label films and game design. Show all posts
Showing posts with label films and game design. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Sunday, June 21, 2009
CA and me
The obsessive quest for definition continues.
I've decided/realized that yes, it's absolutely, positively fine for a game that mainly supports one Creative Agenda can (probably will) have rules that are, or appear to be, related to another CA. It came to me as I was thinking about an example of a movie in which tactics and strategies of the characters are frequently relevant to the plot, but the movie's still "about" something else.
Last of the Mohicans comes to mind. So does Braveheart. Hell, only action movies can get away with lots of bloodshed and battle scenes without there being something "else" going on.
Silly of me to not see this, in hindsight. So - in Braveheart, we'll say the Premise is "We don't have to beat them; just fight them". Thus, rebellion is not so much about winning as it is about not giving up. The flip side of it is that the rebellion is an expression of this stubbornness, the desire to live with dignity; that's why we're fighting. At this point, it's quite similar to the RPG Orkworld - "humans have the numbers; dwarves have the [weapons?]; elves have the magic; all orcs have is courage, and that is enough". That's an excerpt from an old promo for the game. Whatta premise, eh?
Anyway - naturally, the Scots still want to win their battles, not just fight them. They devise tactics of all sorts, they fight their hearts out, and so on. Rules for combat, even fairly tactical combat, would not be terribly out of place here. But the fighting isn't the point; the point is the Scots have to prove to themselves that they have dignity, that they have ethnic pride, trying to recover that which the English took from them. I dunno; if you have other ideas, that's cool. I'm shooting from the hip, here. What you need *besides* combat rules is some kind of mechanic(s) that injects hope, courage, dignity, pride, or plain old grit into those mechanics; furthermore, this isn't just "flavor" - it has to be the thing that drives play. And it does - after getting their asses beaten at Falkirk, the Scots lose their champion. He goes off to get tortured and executed in London for being a traitor to the crown. Looks bad, eh? Well, Stephen the Irishman goes with Hamish to see their buddy off; following the emotional route of the film, it is because they do this, and arguably because he's betrayed by Robert the Bruce, that the Scots can finally win the day.
In some kinda game terms, it's arguable that our two brave fighters have just recharged their Pride pools, and can now bust out some serious victory in the final battle at Bannockburn. The film, through this lens, is not about the war alone - especially with the early establishment scenes showing the pathos and misery of the Scots, it's about the clans learning to hold their heads up high again.
Now, a game that covers only tactics and Pride would be pretty thin, and it wouldn't really offer much in the way of options for the players - you can fight, and you can gain Pride by suffering outrages at the hands of the English.
But if you put in some stuff about alliances between different factions (join the English and sell out; trust no one but your own clan and see how far it gets you), some meaty mechanics on how one goes about gaining Pride (and losing it), and so on, then you've got something. I suppose, in terms of mechanics, the focus must mirror the focus of a film - Braveheart's plot doesn't dwell exclusively on the battle scenes, but rather has a lot else in there about betrayal, loyalty, love, lust, family, obligation, and dignity. *These* are the things that you build the game around, and the battles, scraps, and rows could be "payoff" scenes - situations in which you fire off the shots you've loaded through non-battle "development" scenes.
Wow, that got out of hand really fast. I think I want to reboot Mask of the Emperor as, say, something like Caste Warfare: a Game of Rebellion. Neat! More to come.
I've decided/realized that yes, it's absolutely, positively fine for a game that mainly supports one Creative Agenda can (probably will) have rules that are, or appear to be, related to another CA. It came to me as I was thinking about an example of a movie in which tactics and strategies of the characters are frequently relevant to the plot, but the movie's still "about" something else.
Last of the Mohicans comes to mind. So does Braveheart. Hell, only action movies can get away with lots of bloodshed and battle scenes without there being something "else" going on.
Silly of me to not see this, in hindsight. So - in Braveheart, we'll say the Premise is "We don't have to beat them; just fight them". Thus, rebellion is not so much about winning as it is about not giving up. The flip side of it is that the rebellion is an expression of this stubbornness, the desire to live with dignity; that's why we're fighting. At this point, it's quite similar to the RPG Orkworld - "humans have the numbers; dwarves have the [weapons?]; elves have the magic; all orcs have is courage, and that is enough". That's an excerpt from an old promo for the game. Whatta premise, eh?
Anyway - naturally, the Scots still want to win their battles, not just fight them. They devise tactics of all sorts, they fight their hearts out, and so on. Rules for combat, even fairly tactical combat, would not be terribly out of place here. But the fighting isn't the point; the point is the Scots have to prove to themselves that they have dignity, that they have ethnic pride, trying to recover that which the English took from them. I dunno; if you have other ideas, that's cool. I'm shooting from the hip, here. What you need *besides* combat rules is some kind of mechanic(s) that injects hope, courage, dignity, pride, or plain old grit into those mechanics; furthermore, this isn't just "flavor" - it has to be the thing that drives play. And it does - after getting their asses beaten at Falkirk, the Scots lose their champion. He goes off to get tortured and executed in London for being a traitor to the crown. Looks bad, eh? Well, Stephen the Irishman goes with Hamish to see their buddy off; following the emotional route of the film, it is because they do this, and arguably because he's betrayed by Robert the Bruce, that the Scots can finally win the day.
In some kinda game terms, it's arguable that our two brave fighters have just recharged their Pride pools, and can now bust out some serious victory in the final battle at Bannockburn. The film, through this lens, is not about the war alone - especially with the early establishment scenes showing the pathos and misery of the Scots, it's about the clans learning to hold their heads up high again.
Now, a game that covers only tactics and Pride would be pretty thin, and it wouldn't really offer much in the way of options for the players - you can fight, and you can gain Pride by suffering outrages at the hands of the English.
But if you put in some stuff about alliances between different factions (join the English and sell out; trust no one but your own clan and see how far it gets you), some meaty mechanics on how one goes about gaining Pride (and losing it), and so on, then you've got something. I suppose, in terms of mechanics, the focus must mirror the focus of a film - Braveheart's plot doesn't dwell exclusively on the battle scenes, but rather has a lot else in there about betrayal, loyalty, love, lust, family, obligation, and dignity. *These* are the things that you build the game around, and the battles, scraps, and rows could be "payoff" scenes - situations in which you fire off the shots you've loaded through non-battle "development" scenes.
Wow, that got out of hand really fast. I think I want to reboot Mask of the Emperor as, say, something like Caste Warfare: a Game of Rebellion. Neat! More to come.
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