Reply To: Victory Points Suck!

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Totally agree with @limburger , @torros , and @brennon .

I’m actually a big fan of victory points, assuming they are done well.

As far back as The Arab-Israeli Wars this was mastered, with each side getting different levels of VP awards fro different things (enemy kills, friendly units reaching certain points on the board, certain objectives taken, certain assets used / not used, etc).  This was a break from earlier designs in the same series where games were usually decided by taking just a certain “capture the flag” objective, regardless of losses, time, collateral damage, enemy status, or other factors.

This speaks to what torros was saying about victory points being objectives and vice-versa.  I think of victory points as “quantified objectives,” so some objectives are more important that others.

Finely-crafted victory point win conditions give several advantages:

1) Players have more than one way to win.

2) No two games are the same, because what players have to do to win can be specified down to a very precise level of detail and each scenario can be different.

3) Victory points can encourage or discourage certain styles of play, sort of a “polite, soft-handed” way of informing the game with historical doctrine / faction flavor.

3a) So imagine a game where the Egyptians get 10 points for every Israeli tank destroyed but the Israelis get zero points for every Egyptian tanks destroyed.  Maybe the Israelis get 5 points per turn they can hold a certain ridge.   The Egyptian player can bum rush the objective, heedless of casualties, while the Israeli player has to play very careful defense, keeping losses down and playing for time.

3b) The same idea could translate to an X-wing vs. TIE fighter game.  The Empire has countless TIE fighters and is callous and evil, so they don’t care how many TIEs they lose … while the Rebels are not only “kind hearted good guys” but also those X-wings are powerful, expensive, precious.    The point is, these considerations are left for the players to discover and play on their own, now handed down in what REALLY suck = “faction rules” and unit “special abilities.”

4) you obviously have to more VP than your opponent to win.  So not only do you have to gain points, but prevent your opponent from getting too many points.  Sound obvious, but most “good” things are.  The trick is doing simple things WELL.  If done well, remember there are 3-4 ways to win.  So since you’re trying to win and prevent your opponent from winning, there could be as many as 6-8 “games” going on the table at once.  Granted, these are for larger games.

5) allows great asymmetrical game design, if the “weaker” side gets more points for achieving certain things on the table.

6) allows for EASY modification of unbalanced games.  This is especially crucial for “hard” history games, where forces, terrain, time limits, army traits, etc … are all hard-coded by the historical event being recreated.  You can’t play with these factors too much, but since real war is never fair, you’re left with no real way to make unfair historical battles into GAMES that are fun and challenging for both players.  The secret sauce is victory points.  You can re-balance a game with this secret “back door” into the game design without changing forces, stats, terrain, special rules, etc.  Not only is this not “possible” in harder-core historical games, but it’s also a lot harder/ more work.  😀

I should qualify all this by simply saying that while victory points do not suck (in fact, victory points rule), but only if they are done well.   That means research (regardless of genre, almost all games are based on SOMETHING that needs to be faithfully represented), playtesting, careful math, and willingness on the part of the designer to make revisions.  I’ve seen games where this is not done well, but rushed and hamfisted (eh … okay, take that bridge you get 5 points.  Take that farmhouse you get 10.  Okay, GO!)

So maybe we could agree that “Victory Points Done Poorly Suck” ??  😀 😀 😀