Blast of War: Victory Conditions
One of my design goals for Blast of War is to avoid allowing total victory, the total elimination of your opponent, to be the most common method of victory. Assuming all goes well the "will" mechanic I am using will provide a manipulable upper bound to game length that will encourage players to attempt to achieve objective that provide victory points at the end of the game. My current problem is how to create those objectives in a way that rewards intelligent play, can create an organic narrative to the battles - even pick-up games, and makes total victory a risky strategy.
As this blog is more a design notebook for me and less intended for general viewing (which is good, as I'd be very disappointed with the number of visitors otherwise) I'm going to discuss the types of victory conditions I've seen in tabletop games then roll over to rambling about ideas that might help meet my design goals for BoW.
Narrative Scenarios
I am a huge fan of narrative scenarios like what Warhammer 2nd (or 3rd?) edition had - with individual victory point tracks per player that drove the player to play in a way fitting the narrative of the setting. I especially loved the first "Battle for Orc's Drift" scenario where the elf player gained victory points if his general died, the narrative that made sense out of this is that the elf general was in disgrace and would regain his honor by death in combat. How unusual! Can you imagine playing that scenario for the first time as the orcs and cheering as you cut down the elf general - only to lose at the end of the game because of it?
The problem with these scenarios is that they only work once. If the players switch sides the orcs won't go out of their way to kill the elf general - and (more spoilers) the elf player won't be expecting reinforcements on turn three that never show up.
Pre-Canned Scenarios
This class of scenario is defined (by me) as the standard deathmatch plus a twist that is typically common to both players. Players deploy their forces, rush into the middle of the board, and roll dice until one player runs out of little plastic pieces to roll dice for. Typically the "twist" isn't enough to change player behavior because it either fails to reward the player enough to distract them from crushing the enemy forces, or are achievable as the player focuses on crushing their opponent and therefor never impacts gameplay. Warhammer (after 3rd edition) is famous for this, Mordheim and Frostgrave also follow this track, though Frostgrave does more to encourage players to chase the objectives, especially with the Ulterior Motives expansion.
Pre-canned scenarios typically provide twists with a marginal VP benefit. Frostgrave mitigates the blandness of this style of victory condition when played as a campaign by providing bonus experience for the player(s) that complete the twists.
Deathmatch
Deathmatch scenarios give the players the single goal of eliminating as much of the enemy army as possible. This is a great way to learn the mechanics of a game and gain some skill as a player, but they offer limited depth, especially with the tendency to increase the size of the forces over time until maneuver (the primary method by which a player interacts with a wargame) is all but eliminated and the game is reduced to rolling dice.
Objective Scenarios
This type of scenario is far more common in older hex map wargames like Modern Battles and its SPI and Avalon Hill siblings. Both players have known objectives that if met at or before the end of a turn limit win the game for one side. As hex map games were usually designed to create more dynamic battle lines that shift as a result of combat where miniature games favor unit elimination these scenarios were difficult if not impossible to win through total elimination of a player.
Objective scenarios are only effective in games with highly resilient units that are typically pushed back as a result of combat instead of being destroyed. The higher rate of combat survival enables an ebb-and-flow as players attempt to position their forces in a way that secures an objective and limits the common snowball effect that a bad dice roll can have at the start of a typical miniatures game. I am totally off topic here but I think this is an important observation on how design philosophy has changed from the 1970's to today.
"Family" Board Games
Board games and wargames have many similarities, and there is a great deal to be learned from board game design. Where tabletop wargames largely have one victory condition - the elimination of your opponent - there is a wide variety of victory conditions in board games, sometimes even mutually exclusive conditions that force players to (gasp) make decisions! Many games include secret victory conditions, independent victory conditions, and cooperative victory conditions, and most such games don't include player elimination. I am not making the case that player elimination is bad (we're not all winners, especially in war...), but rather that conflict doesn't have to boil down to a deathmatch.
As this blog is more a design notebook for me and less intended for general viewing (which is good, as I'd be very disappointed with the number of visitors otherwise) I'm going to discuss the types of victory conditions I've seen in tabletop games then roll over to rambling about ideas that might help meet my design goals for BoW.
Narrative Scenarios
I am a huge fan of narrative scenarios like what Warhammer 2nd (or 3rd?) edition had - with individual victory point tracks per player that drove the player to play in a way fitting the narrative of the setting. I especially loved the first "Battle for Orc's Drift" scenario where the elf player gained victory points if his general died, the narrative that made sense out of this is that the elf general was in disgrace and would regain his honor by death in combat. How unusual! Can you imagine playing that scenario for the first time as the orcs and cheering as you cut down the elf general - only to lose at the end of the game because of it?
The problem with these scenarios is that they only work once. If the players switch sides the orcs won't go out of their way to kill the elf general - and (more spoilers) the elf player won't be expecting reinforcements on turn three that never show up.
Pre-Canned Scenarios
This class of scenario is defined (by me) as the standard deathmatch plus a twist that is typically common to both players. Players deploy their forces, rush into the middle of the board, and roll dice until one player runs out of little plastic pieces to roll dice for. Typically the "twist" isn't enough to change player behavior because it either fails to reward the player enough to distract them from crushing the enemy forces, or are achievable as the player focuses on crushing their opponent and therefor never impacts gameplay. Warhammer (after 3rd edition) is famous for this, Mordheim and Frostgrave also follow this track, though Frostgrave does more to encourage players to chase the objectives, especially with the Ulterior Motives expansion.
Pre-canned scenarios typically provide twists with a marginal VP benefit. Frostgrave mitigates the blandness of this style of victory condition when played as a campaign by providing bonus experience for the player(s) that complete the twists.
Deathmatch
Deathmatch scenarios give the players the single goal of eliminating as much of the enemy army as possible. This is a great way to learn the mechanics of a game and gain some skill as a player, but they offer limited depth, especially with the tendency to increase the size of the forces over time until maneuver (the primary method by which a player interacts with a wargame) is all but eliminated and the game is reduced to rolling dice.
Objective Scenarios
This type of scenario is far more common in older hex map wargames like Modern Battles and its SPI and Avalon Hill siblings. Both players have known objectives that if met at or before the end of a turn limit win the game for one side. As hex map games were usually designed to create more dynamic battle lines that shift as a result of combat where miniature games favor unit elimination these scenarios were difficult if not impossible to win through total elimination of a player.
Objective scenarios are only effective in games with highly resilient units that are typically pushed back as a result of combat instead of being destroyed. The higher rate of combat survival enables an ebb-and-flow as players attempt to position their forces in a way that secures an objective and limits the common snowball effect that a bad dice roll can have at the start of a typical miniatures game. I am totally off topic here but I think this is an important observation on how design philosophy has changed from the 1970's to today.
"Family" Board Games
Board games and wargames have many similarities, and there is a great deal to be learned from board game design. Where tabletop wargames largely have one victory condition - the elimination of your opponent - there is a wide variety of victory conditions in board games, sometimes even mutually exclusive conditions that force players to (gasp) make decisions! Many games include secret victory conditions, independent victory conditions, and cooperative victory conditions, and most such games don't include player elimination. I am not making the case that player elimination is bad (we're not all winners, especially in war...), but rather that conflict doesn't have to boil down to a deathmatch.
Design Desirement
From my problem statement at the end of the first paragraph I want to create those objectives in a way that rewards intelligent play, can create an organic narrative to the battles - even pick-up games, and makes total victory a risky strategy. Let's break that down:
Make total victory a risky strategy.
Total victory is defined, by me, as a victory won by completely clearing the board of unbroken enemy units. If this is a going to be a risky strategy there will need to be an opportunity cost to pursuing this course - perhaps by creating a VP penalty for a force with incomplete objectives at the end of the game. If there is enough of a VP gain in eliminating enemy units the VP penalty for incomplete objectives wouldn't be enough of a risk, so the VP gain for eliminating enemy units must be balanced with other objectives. Total victory can be made more difficult by combat resolutions that create retreats and fluid battle lines instead of highly lethal combat resolution.
Objectives create an organic narrative for each battle.
This one has me stumped. I know WH40K 1st ed included a large set of battle "hooks", Frostgrave's Ulterior Motives cards include narrative elements with each motive, and RPG's and their millions of supplements are chalk full of adventure hooks - those would be good places to start for how to create enough substance to each objective while making them open enough to include multiple objectives for a player at the same time.
Create objectives in a way that rewards intelligent play.
The intelligent play I'm looking for is in players attempting to deduce what objectives their opponent is attempting to complete. That kind of gameplay requires some knowledge of the opponents possible objectives, but not complete knowledge - perhaps including a way to gain more knowledge during the course of play? The reward for the "intelligent" play I am looking for would have to be related to the number of VP's earned at the end of the game - if an incomplete objective penalizes a player's VP total perhaps an objective of one player completed by their opponent would provide additional VP to the opponent.
Make total victory a risky strategy.
Total victory is defined, by me, as a victory won by completely clearing the board of unbroken enemy units. If this is a going to be a risky strategy there will need to be an opportunity cost to pursuing this course - perhaps by creating a VP penalty for a force with incomplete objectives at the end of the game. If there is enough of a VP gain in eliminating enemy units the VP penalty for incomplete objectives wouldn't be enough of a risk, so the VP gain for eliminating enemy units must be balanced with other objectives. Total victory can be made more difficult by combat resolutions that create retreats and fluid battle lines instead of highly lethal combat resolution.
Objectives create an organic narrative for each battle.
This one has me stumped. I know WH40K 1st ed included a large set of battle "hooks", Frostgrave's Ulterior Motives cards include narrative elements with each motive, and RPG's and their millions of supplements are chalk full of adventure hooks - those would be good places to start for how to create enough substance to each objective while making them open enough to include multiple objectives for a player at the same time.
Create objectives in a way that rewards intelligent play.
The intelligent play I'm looking for is in players attempting to deduce what objectives their opponent is attempting to complete. That kind of gameplay requires some knowledge of the opponents possible objectives, but not complete knowledge - perhaps including a way to gain more knowledge during the course of play? The reward for the "intelligent" play I am looking for would have to be related to the number of VP's earned at the end of the game - if an incomplete objective penalizes a player's VP total perhaps an objective of one player completed by their opponent would provide additional VP to the opponent.
Takeaway
So, my personal takeaway from my rambling is:
1- I need a set of objectives that are randomly selected from.
2- These objectives need to provide substantially more VPs that enemy deaths would.
3- The objectives must contain narrative elements that can be tied together into a coherent story by the players.
4- Players must have some amount of knowledge of the objectives their opponent might have.
5- Players aught to have some means by which to gain more knowledge of their opponent's objectives.
6- Objectives should have a VP reward for completion, penalty if incomplete, and a "steal" reward if the opponent completes it.
Obviously some objectives wouldn't have a steal reward, objectives like killing the enemies leader or moving troops off the opposite board edge. This observation brings me to a question for another time - what are the possible objectives and how should they be selected?
As always, I look forward to any feedback on the post and scenario design!
As always, I look forward to any feedback on the post and scenario design!
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