Changing Mindsets

November 19th, 2009 Zen

This is a post about pen and paper roleplaying games. Turn back now if you’re not interested.

I have often struggled over the years to create a different flavour to my campaign experience. I freely admit that most of my games have thematic tones of evil and conquest, where I could quite easily exploit themes of corruption, intrigue, mystery, horror and so on. Somehow I always seem to return to my generic fantasy roots, wherein evil is trying to take over by spewing forth an army from the deep dark depths of hell or its fantasy setting equivalent. Even in my most original campaign plots, there has been an army of some description bent on invading where the players are currently located.

So too do my players get stuck in their own mindsets. I largely attribute it to the fact that, in GURPS, you are invincible. While many options for evisceration are available to players and enemies alike, somehow all my opponents end up as unrecognisable piles of meat on the floor. Most of my players, myself included, began on this system. There is a mindset at my table that the player characters can overcome, which is inspiring in books and movies, but usually leads to rampantly stupid acts of heroism that get people killed in roleplaying games.

When running a game of 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons, I do like to appreciate that my players occasionally feel overwhelmed. I like them in the final few encounters of an adventure to discuss the possibility of high tailing it and have ‘maybe those villagers can defend from what’s left of the hobgoblins anyway’ conversations.That is of course before they inevitably fell a few foes and everything seems alright again. I’ve fallen into the trap of making things too easy and become a sucker for the good ending. I’d like to kill a player character, but the long surviving GURPS characters haven’t given me the taste for blood I needed in my early DMing days to help me become the cold heartless bastard at the head of the table that I should be.

Similarly, I can’t get my table sessions to have the right feel to them. I’m not talking about game content, but rather what happens in the course of playing the game. I’d like to start calling my players by their character names when their initiative comes up, but I just can’t. I always slip back into player names which I’m sure facilitates the table talk and meta-gaming that floods our sessions. Not that I mind it all terribly, we all have fun in the end - it’s just something that I’d appreciate.

I guess to conclude I should declare that “COOL STORY BRO” is not an appropriate comment or response to this article. I am aware that this post is entirely contentless, but these things have been swirling in my head for some time now. It’s good to put them down, and I hope I can’t find this article one day and reflect on how my campaigns have improved.

Posted in Game Concepts, News, Pen and Paper | 3 Comments »

We’re All Friends In Space

August 10th, 2009 Zen

The TUCS LAN just past was choc full of inane sleep deprived rambling, shouting, board games and bricks being thrown through windows. The latter was not us, eff why eye.

We played a good many games of the Battlestar Galactica board game. I played in two, but hid in my jumper and slept through the third. While the game isn’t exactly fair, and mostly consists of the human team desperately trying to hold on to their bar of soap in a prison shower, while keeping their backs to the wall and eying everyone else in the room - wondering who might jostle them and make them drop it.

I have briefly mentioned this game before in a previous post, but to recap it’s a semi-cooperative game where there is guaranteed to be one or two people who aren’t really on your side. These people will work to destroy the fleet while you’re not looking. There are a few things about the mechanics of this game that I find intriguing.

Player-Enforced Social Rule: The game features a skill check system in which the humans stave off disaster, but which player play cards into secretly; Some cards help, some hinder. In this way, an unrevealed Cylon can disrupt the fleet without giving themselves away. In comes the player-enforced secrecy rule. Nobody at the table is allowed to state with certainty anything they know, except when such a statement could be a fabrication. For example, anyone can say that they can “help out on this skill check a bit” but nobody may say “I can play 5 piloting to help out”. However, if a player gets the ability to look at another player’s Loyalty card(s) - which indicate his human or Cylon status - he can say whatever he wants, be that “he’s a Cylon” or “he’s cool, guys”. I’m constantly surprised how well this player-enforced system works, given that player-reliant rules are usually flimsy and most games rely on a player’s lack of knowledge to determine limitation of information.

Bluffing: One thing I love about the game is it brings the fun of social interaction to its potential limit. A Cylon player has many different bluffing strategies up his sleeve, and humans need to work out the true intentions behind everyone’s actions. Some of the Cylon bluffing strategies I’ve seen used to great effect (there are many others):

• Be “honest”. Stating the logical reason to the table why you could be a Cylon is a good way to decrease suspicion, usually. “Well the Cylon obviously played politics cards against us, so it could either be player x, player y or me.”
• In contrast to the above, try to acquire cards outside of your skill set. If you’re a politician, get some tactics or engineering cards to play against the humans. This has the added benefit of shifting suspicion on the other players. “Well I don’t even draw tactics cards, but you do.”
• Gain their trust. While this is easy to do by simply blowing up some Cylons or helping everyone in some crucial skill check, I’ve seen it best used in an unlikely situation. A Cylon player who investigated another player and found him to be a Cylon declared it - leading to the capture of a Cylon. But this earned him enough trust to stay out of suspicion for the rest of the game while he ruined the human team. “Yep, he’s a Cylon guys.”
• Endure the blame. If you’ve been accused of being a Cylon and locked away when you are one, you can wait it out instead of going guns blazing. The person who pulled this trick sat in the brig until I wasn’t sure why I accused him in the first place, and we let him out. “Bloody hell, I’m not a Cylon!“

Grudges: Most games suffer when grudges get involved. The constant tit for tat in any other board game just detracts from the experience. However, in the Battlestar Galactica board game, grudges for a part of a justifiable accusation. If that other guy threw you in the brig because he thought you were a Cylon, you can exact your revenge by accusing him of being one (which makes sense, because if you aren’t one then he could have been deliberately disrupting the fleet). The constant banter when pointing out inconsistencies and past actions is what makes the paranoia in the game so great.

One Player Can Ruin It For Everyone: While it’s true that every player has his own style of play, there is rarely any advantage in keeping vital Cylon location information to yourself. Occasionally a player will withhold information about the Loyalty cards he just spied on. Even for Cylons, there is no reason to hold on to this - you can lie, or tell the truth ala the above bluffing strategy. While I usually despise game rules that limit the play style to one avenue (handing the information out), the game mechanic more than makes up for it. In other similar ways, the game can be “ruined” by one player not rooting for his team, or being a mehhfort Cylon.

President Admiral Winton Adama

Posted in Board Games, Game Concepts | 2 Comments »

Bringing Home The Bacon: Victory In Strategy Games

May 25th, 2009 Zen

While on the topic of Twilight Imperium, a game much played by my friends recently, I got to thinking about victory.

I have to thank Mr Ford though, as through failing to achieve many objectives towards the game’s victory, it made me wonder why. In Twilight Imperium, at least, most of the objectives you have to complete in order to gain victory points are economic or technological - a facet of the game that doesn’t appeal to anyone. Some people just like to blow stuff up. In the interests of science, and because I like making lists, he’s a few motives for play and endgame objectives I can think of. Try to work out which one you like best.

• Conquest: Wipe out the other players. Very popular in computer games and best used in games that don’t last that long. It is a tug-of-war type game, in that players will push back and forth until one wins. Because players can be eliminated, its best not to use this in a game like Twilight Imperium unless you’re prepared to have players pack up, walk out the door and go home many hours before the game ends. One important aspect of the conquest objective is balancing your resources between warfare and development, using developed territory or technology to fuel your war machine. Players who fail to balance this could be left with a destroyed fleet and no income. This option is more commonly used in Real-Time Strategy games on computer and rarely in board games.

• Attrition: An alternative to conquest, wherein players just try to deal damage or take territory to gain victory. It doesn’t involve the complete elimination of any player, though it’s certainly not discounted as an option. This is the type of victory used in games like Defcon, and in the alternative objective deck provided with the Twilight Imperium expansion.

• Economic: Victory usually occurs after a player has amassed enough stuff. It is, in essence, a race to a victory point, with which one player can suddenly and unexpectedly emerge the victor. This can put emphasis on budget, management of purchases and the occasional aggressive action to get the job done. This is the type of objective I prefer, as I don’t like being forced into conflict if I can avoid it. The economic victory requires the player to leverage diplomacy in their favour, which can be hard against a heavy-handed conquest player. This is the option used in the base Twilight Imperium game and in games like Settlers of Catan.

• Build Up: Victory is achieved through establishing a certain level of infrastructure or technological advance, and appeals to the type of gamer who likes the economical victory. Similar to the economical victory, it is a race gametype. Unlike economical though, it requires the player to invest in something other than warfare, while still maintaining a formidable defense force - in case things go south. It requires a little more tactics than economical, as the money or gains are not immediately available for use in warfare whenever you need it. Therefore, players who like to build upwards are going to have a lot more invested in static defenses such as minefields, forts or cannons. This is partly used by Twilight Imperium in the base game.

• Precision Strike: Victory is gained by acquiring one particular location or thing, and is favoured by players who prefer underhanded tactics and negotiation. This type of strategy is frequently only available in games with alliances, or variations of them. This objective is definitely for people who like action, as it doesn’t require much investment in infrastructure or forces, but rather careful foreplanning, an opportunity - and luck. However, lack of power usually leads to fatal backlash from the person you backstabbed, and is frequently the downfall of the precision player. Additional planning can lead this sort of player to defend against a backlash, causing further damage to the intended target. The precision player needs to use threats more than any other negotiation, which doesn’t win you friends.

Posted in Board Games, Card Games, Console Gaming, Game Concepts, PC Gaming, Player Satisfaction | 1 Comment »

Platformers Have Platforms

May 14th, 2009 Zen

A little while ago, Andrew - lead artistic designer for Day of the Tiki (and in fact, most of Secret Lab’s projects) approached me on the Internet and asked how random platforms flying around a level could be made to fit the theme of Tiki Bar TV. Obviously, platforms with no hint of a mechanism controlling them can be explained by gypsy magic, but this felt a little tacky and cheap - and didn’t really explain why tiny pieces of what we can only assume to be driftwood had been enchanted in such a way so terribly convenient for Johnny Johnny.

Over the course of the conversation I realised, with delight, that finally my ideas didn’t really have to make sense anymore. Tiki Bar TV fits fantastically well with our surreal sense of reality. “How about,” I began, pressing enter and waiting a few seconds for dramatic effect. “Platforms,” I continued. I began a new line here as well. Dramatic effect was getting a little annoyed. “Carried by crabs,” I finished.

This was the first suggestion for making platforms more than magically enchanted slabs of wood, and it changed history forever my vision of the completed game. Ideas flew around about vertical traveling platforms and how they could be explained. Admittedly, my first suggestion was “flying crabs”, in response to which Andrew ingeniously coined the term “birds”.

Here it is: the first image of the Platform Crab.

Posted in Game Concepts, PC Gaming | 1 Comment »

Suspicion, Distrust and Teamwork

April 20th, 2009 Zen

I tend to favour games with flimsy alliances and deadly tactical consequences. To explain, I like games that allow you backstab, and be vulnerable to the same. When I half-bake an idea for a board or card game in my head, I deliberately keep teamwork in mind.

Permanent alliances, or teams set out from the start, harbour a sense of security. You know who your friends are, you know where the enemy is - you build your tactics on numbers and probability alone. However, when you play a game in which you form alliances that can be broken, or you just don’t know who the enemy is, a human element of suspicion and distrust develops - which extends the game beyond simply knowing the rules and the best tactics. Note that these rules apply to certain fantastic electronic video computer games, in which Spy Checking can be a waste of time and ammunition.

In a card game idea that has been ongoing for some time now, I have toyed with the idea of players’ reliance on each other, even though there can be only one victor. It is my hope that players will begin the game with complete teamwork in mind, in order to complete their common objective, but as they get closer to the end, will begin playing against each other or, at the very least, leaving each other to die.

So, if you ever aspire to making a computer game or two, throw in some suspicion and distrust with your teamwork.

Posted in Board Games, Card Games, Game Concepts, PC Gaming | No Comments »

Jailbreak: The Reimplementation

March 31st, 2009 Zen

I got to talking with my good friend buddy Jon Manning yesterday about my previous blog post. Naturally, as we have before, we began talking about how much a mod would be properly implemented. Read the post below this one of you will remain baffled. The two keys to reimplimentation would be to enforce the line between unnecesary and neccesary killing of prisoners, and to give a proper objective to the prison wardens.

Determining the legitimacy of the kill could be based on an algorithm that combines all the circumstances of the kill into a single value, which is compared against a threshold. If the value is below the threshold, nearby players are asked to vote on the legitimacy of a kill. Determining a kill as unwarranted would result in a suitable punishment for the warden. The legitimacy value of the kill would increase in the following circumstances.

• Prisoner injuring a warden.
• Prisoner killing a warden.
• Prisoner swinging a knife within a certain distance of a warden.
• Prisoner holding a knife, facing a warden and moving within attacking distance of that warden.
• Prisoner holding a gun and aiming within a certain angle of a warden.
• Prisoner holding a gun for greater than a set amount of time.
• Prisoner holstering a gun for an excessive amount of time.
• Prisoner preparing a weapon attachment or switching firing modes.
• Prisoner priming a lethal grenade.
• Prisoner leaving containment area.
• Multiple prisoners surrounding a warden.

Note that these are situations that would raise the value, and not all would warrant an instant kill.

In terms of an objective for the wardens, it was agreed that the best solution was to provide an event that happens at a certain time in a certain location. Our example was a transport van arriving in the courtyard; The wardens would need to shepherd all prisoners to the courtyard and into the van. Of course, a minute or so after the van has arrived, all prisoners would be marked as disobedient for not jumping in the van and would be legitimate targets, thereby causing the round to end without excessive meandering.

The downside of this is that the prisoners have no incentive to get into the van. They lose if they comply, which will force a riot every single time. The best incentive is to offer a single point to those who comply, but two points for every prisoner who survives the round. This way, you have incentive for prisoners to give up when all is hopeless, but still reason to escape where possible.

Posted in Game Concepts, Game Mods, PC Gaming, Player Satisfaction | No Comments »

Self-Imposed Rules, Too Much To Ask?

March 30th, 2009 Zen

Everyone who has ever touched a computer game knows what Counter-Strike is. For those of you who haven’t touched a computer and are looking over your friend’s shoulder with a mixture of fear and curiosity, Counter-Strike is a team-based First Person Shooter that is played in rounds. Once you’re dead in a round, you need to wait for the next one. Your team wins the round by completing your set objective (or, in some cases, stopping the other team from achieving theirs) or eliminating the opposing team.

I have re-discovered a “mod” for this game that I used to play years ago. I say mod in parentheses because it’s just a set of custom maps designed to facilitate the rules, and a server that has the rules as the Message of the Day.

The game is called Jailbreak. The idea is, generally, that the Counter-Terrorists start with whatever guns they choose and the Terrorists start with only knives (you can’t carry any less) and spawn inside the jail cells. The Counter-Terrorists will have access to buttons and switches that open and close doors throughout the map, including the Terrorists’ cells (no pun intended). This is where the self-imposed limitations come in. For Terrorists, there are no rules. Find a weak wall, break out, kill who you can, steal the guns, rescue your team-mates and escape. For the Counter-Terrorists, there are rules.

• Every Counter-Terrorist must have a microphone. The server is set to ‘All-Speak’ which means everyone can hear everyone talking.
• Counter-Terrorists must warn Terrorists taking hostile or disobedient actions before killing or wounding a prisoner.
• Counter-Terrorists must give Terrorists an opportunity to disarm themselves.
• Counter-Terrorists may kill Terrorists who draw weapons and point them at Counter-Terrorists.

There are various smaller rules, but these are the core elements. It’s meant to be like a prison, and the Terrorists need to escape. Frequently, Counter-Terrorists will decide on a location to escort all the Terrorists to (such as, say, the courtyard outside) which usually involves taking them through a series of secure doors and making sure they have no guns. In general, escorting the Terrorists to another part of the level is a good way to encourage an escape attempt, thereby allowing Counter-Terrorists to kill within the rules. The game falls apart if even one Counter-Terrorist is a moron and shoots people.

Tactics I’ve seen used to best effect:

• A single prisoner zips back into a cell with a weak wall and waits. If the prison guards don’t count prisoners, they lead the rest on and forget about the lone prisoner, who could then break open the weak wall with his knife and run amok.
• A prisoner who spawns in a cell with a hidden pistol grabs it and remains in the middle of the prisoner mob being escorted to the courtyard, thereby hiding his holstered sidearm from view. Once outside, the prisoner with the pistol finds a dark corner and begins shooting prison guards on the walls, providing a distraction so that his team can boost each other over a low wall.
• A guard foolishly enters the room to retrieve a pistol that a prisoner has holstered. Once there, he moves out of line of sight of his fellow guards and is knife mobbed by the prisoners, who take his weapons and divide them up.
• A prisoner is caught outside of the containment area with a weapon, and is forced to drop it. The prison guard makes him back off around a corner, and upon following the prisoner, is shot by several hidden escapees.

I’m obsessed with this game mode, as long as the server is kept clean of rule-breakers.

Posted in Game Concepts, Game Mods, PC Gaming | No Comments »

Serious Macro: Starcraft II Easier For The Lazy Gamer

March 18th, 2009 Zen

I don’t know much about Starcraft II. To be honest, I wasn’t as much a fan of the original as everyone else was. For those of you who are as ignorant of the game as I am, and prefer some serious tactical macro as I might find in our epic “don’t attack before a whole hour is up” C&C Generals games, this post is for you.

I’m not saying you could become a pro with Starcraft 2 simply by using its improved control groups and attack orders, but you’ll do better than you did with the original, and here’s why.

• There are no terrain modifiers. Damage is not increased or decreased by where you are, which decreases confusion. However…
• Line of sight is blocked to higher levels. Get shot at from the upper ledge, and you can’t see them much less shoot back. Indirect artillery fire at that ledge would be needed.
• Various other LoS blockers allow ambushes, such as bushes, smoke, etc.
• Zerg can now tunnel and move around while burrowing. This means that not only can Zerg effectively ambush, but they can ambush from a point you thought was safe (If you favoured GLA in Generals, this is for you. And me. Watch out.)
• Unit types now do bonuses against certain other types of units. It’s about time (This was and still is my major complaint about former Blizzard strategies.)

And, while it may seem strange, these next and last two points in tandem are my favourite improvement.

• The tab key cycles between unit types in a selection (as per Company of Heroes.)
• Units with abilities will cast them smartly. If you have a selection of units and order an Area of Effect ability, only one will cast it. This saves you from wastage and lets you focus on the big picture (away with you, micro!)

All these abilities point to one thing. Starcraft II will be a real, albeit simplified, strategy game that will appeal even to those of us that disliked the original. Long live macro.

Posted in Game Concepts, PC Gaming | No Comments »