Game Design #99: Campaigns, and Difficult vs Unsolvable vs Self-Imposed Issues

Campaign Issues

In a game shop the other day, players were lamenting how in a game like Mordhiem, a 'competitive' player would camp in a tall building in a corner of the map all game - and how it made other players lose interest in the campaign.

The question - 'how do we stop competitive assholes players wrecking a narrative campaign'  is impossible to solve, in game design sense. It's kinda an unsolvable issue. There is always a way to game the system - all rules have an optimal 'meta' way to play. It's difficult to stop people being jerks. The simple way is outside the scope of game design - i.e. refusing to play them. I'd class this as an unsolvable issue.

Another campaign issue that came up in conjunction with this was  (which added to the angst when a competitive kill-em-all/win-at-all-costs player meets a narrative 'fluff-orientated' player - whose minis are about backstory rather than meta) is where models are both characters that individually progress and rules are WYSIWYG and there is permadeath or even long term injuries.  

I.e. you have to lovingly scratch build unique models for your deeply characterful warband, but they can then die irretrievably/you never get to use them thanks to the above competitive player. Even 'upgrading' a model can be a pain if you have to glue on an arm between sessions. And if your game wasn't fun - even worse!

This isn't an impossible to fix - but if a rulebook insists:

A) Models can die and miss out on the campaign permanently

B) Models have to be individualized (WYSIWYG) to precisely match their weapon/upgrades

then

C) You are going (at some stage) to be frustrated your custom mini died on turn 1 of its debut or be resigned to faffing around between games customizing/painting minis.

But - it's only an unsolvable issue if the rules allows it to be. What if....

Only 2-4 heroes per warband can advance in exp (like say ME:SBG Battle Companies) and they can only gain improved primary weapons (+1 flaming sword) rather than swapping to completely different weapons like a flail, or allowing them minor kit upgrades that does not need to be shown on the model (healing potion, throwing knife, climbing rope). You can sidestep WYSIWYG. What if heroes can never die (cinematic licence) but merely are at -1 to all stats next game?

....Many 'impossible' problems are merely self-imposed by the rules designer.

Impossible vs Difficult

Another common issue - "How do we stop one warband from 'snowballing' in strength until it is unbeatable" is merely difficult. I've looked at this at length in a post elsewhere. A difficult issue is not mutually exclusive with the solution - but sometimes needs the question to be reframed.

Currently, I am fiddling with my modern jet rules, trying to make a squadron level ruleset that is simple and fast to play yet retains the feel of air combat - which is a complex affair that requires tracking quite a lot of elements in 3 dimensions. This has been going on for a few years and a few readers have opined this is an unsolvable issue - a fast playing jet wargame that retains the feel of air combat (energy, relative positioning, detection, endurance, etc).

But I think it is merely difficult not impossible. If you follow the 1970s Blue Max formula (as per CY6) it IS impossible. Common themes in an air combat genre:

- "Gamer is the pilot" steering the plane very precisely in 3D space (an issue if more than one plane)

- Pre plotted movement / recording / strict move sequence

- Some sort of special template / hexes (sometimes for individual aircraft)

- Very detailed aircraft/weapons

....ARE mutually exclusive to a fast playing game with 4-12 aircraft per side. It IS an impossible problem if I intend to follow traditional mechanics...

Self Created Issues

There is also self imposed issues - usually by slavishly following existing procedure or adhering to your own mental set of 'rules' or clinging to a favourite mechanic.

"If it ain't broke don't fix it" <- Familiar mechanics are good. Change for the sake of change is pointless

I find most card based systems or fancy dice mechanics fall in this category. Dice and cards are just a RNG - keep it simple and consistent.

but........

"The Definition of Insanity" <- ....is doing the same thing expecting a different outcome.

If I follow the same premise and mechanics of other air games where the player steers each plane precisely, then yes I cannot accomplish my idea of a fast, squadron level game where a player controls 4-12 aircraft. 

"Kill your darlings" -> in story writing, this is when you decide to get rid of an unnecessary storyline, character, or sentences - cool ideas elements you may have worked hard to create but that must be removed for the sake of your overall story.

Sometimes that cool idea or mechanic is better off in another game. Sometimes a pet theory or cool idea must be sacrificed for the greater whole. Just because something worked well elsewhere (Song of Stargrave Rampant) doesn't mean it is suited in this instance. It may be a great mechanic, just not in this game.

False/Needless Simplicity

The lastest one I've considered is 'needless simplicity' or 'false simplicity.'  Simplicity is good. But pursuing simplicity at the expense of all other considerations can make a game worse.

- I've tried to make my homebrew space game completely recording-free YET use few tokens/table clutter. Sadly, it doesn't work with something is big and complex as a space ship. It's hard not to have lots of recording when giant vessels have many subsystems, shields and bulkheads to be nibbled away. I've had to move (unwillingly) to ship data cards - or have the tabletop covered in unsightly tokens. I had to abandon a tenet "no recording" (simplicity) as it was an impossible juxtaposition with "cool tabletop spectacle."

- Song of Blades and Heroes was the frontrunner of the move away from stats-heavy wargames. "One stat does everything." Unfortunately, to differentiate between units it needed 100s of special rules/traits/abilities - in the end MORE rules for a player to remember, not less. This is false simplicity - and was the subject of one of my first posts.

- Recently, I was looking through Grimlite/The Doomed in my recent post on the indie high fluff/low rules trend, and I feel the designer locked in many self-imposed goals which (imo) were needless or contradictory to other aims i.e. super simple gameplay; yet focussed on unique monsters with many special rules (a bit like SoBH) or 'no recording' when the game is meant to be a campaign or sequence of 'hunts'. Some of these were needless simplicity. I.e. "no measuring" can speed up play at the detriment of other tactical choices; but measuring ranges are not usually a major hinderance to play (and exist in 99% of wargames) i.e. the gains are slight. I'd call these self-imposed issues.

Redefining the problem?

With air wargames, I deliberately ignored games like Check Your Six which are typical evolutions of the 1970s Blue Max genre. They work fine when 1 player controls 1 aircraft in a big club game; but what if a player wants to control a flight of 4, or even a squadron? Regardless, writing down orders and leafing through move templates seems the antithesis of a fast paced jet dogfight where seconds count.

Instead I focussed on skirmish boardgames that handled similar amounts of minis. Kill Team, Infinity, even the much  maligned SoBH - what level of detail did they use? What mechanics? And could they be used to give the feel of air combat?

At a core level, most air combat games are very detailed - the player very precisely micromanages headings, altitude, throttle speed of each plane which may have a specific set of moves allowed (rather like a knight in chess). That sort of details is more an RPG than a skirmish wargame where minis often have 360 (or at best 180d) facings and move freely anywhere within ~6".

1.Relative position/facing must matter

2.Relative energy (speed/height) must matter

3.Detection must matter (eyeball/radar)

4.Pilot skill must matter

5.Aircraft and weapon performance will matter

6.Endurance must matter

X. Must play quickly at comparable speed (per mini) to Kill Team, Infinity etc

So I feel free to borrow from and directly use mechanics from infantry skirmish games - as long as all the above were very important considerations to the player every time they went to whoosh their toy aircraft about. 

I decided having a player micromanage precisely the exact speed, height, altitude of every plane - with or without templates - was an impossible problem if I ALSO intended to handle large quantities of aircraft, quickly and simply. 

So instead I intend to sidestep the problem - by avoiding traditional mechanics and usual expectations (the player flies the plane as if he is the pilot) turning an impossible problem into a merely difficult one. I mean, it's quite logical anyways: if I am the flight commander I'm not individually and precisely flying each and every plane, more giving general directions for the pilots to carry out... "Break left" or "He's on your six - evade!" vs the traditional "I'm Speed 6 at Altitude 11, 5 hexes behind an opponent, and I can use templates A, B or C."

I am thus looking at games like Infinity or Kill Team and asking "can I use these proven mechanics which handle 4-12 minis to simulate the core aerial combat concepts I've listed" rather than attempting to streamline and speed up a detailed system intended for a single gamer to 'fly' a single miniature so it suits 4-12 minis. I'm using 'familiar' mechanics - just not ones familiar to the genre.

I still don't have the answers but I feel I've moved the design parameters from 'fundamentally unsolvable' to merely 'difficult.'

TL:DR

Some game design problems are kinda unsolvable, such as competitive players ruining a narrative game. Or game design goals in a rulebook which are mutually exclusive.

Others are merely difficult.

Sometimes game design goals are contradictory - but are a self imposed problem created by the designer - perhaps clinging to familiar or pet mechanics or particular ideals.

Sometimes you may need to shift your own expectations or the parameters of the game; even abandon a game design goal for the good of the game...