Reply To: Why don’t we already have the perfect wargame?

[blinky465 17028xp 1]

@horus500 – I think we’re both in agreement with the predictability of cards. Where we differ is whether or not this is a good thing. Personally, I think it brings a feeling of being able to “mitigate” against bad luck – after all, if you know there’s only one king left to be drawn, you can hedge the odds in your favour; there’s still a chance things will go tits up, but instead of it being a potential game-breaker, you know that – until the deck is shuffled/re-dealt – it can’t happen again. Having rules that dictate when players can shuffle keeps things “random with a degree of predictability.”

The whole cards v dice thing was re-visited after @warzan suggested a game with zero randomness. Dice are totally random. He proposed zero randomness, everything being entirely predictable. I feel that cards are a nice middle ground. I’m not disputing that cards lead to predictable outcomes. But – as the big man himself pointed out – sometimes that can lead to a more satisfying game!

I used to play Blood Bowl with friends who house-ruled that each team was represented by a suit of cards (our players were numbered 1-11). For each turn, we’d shuffle the half-deck (minus kings and queens, blizters were jacks, obviously) and played characters in the order the cards dictated.

Imagine a similar machanic instead of you-go-I-go. It could be really interesting.

Not random enough? What if you’re waiting for your “hero character” card to come up and some rule says “replace all the player turn cards to the deck and shuffle them”. That’s where you can use strategies to influence random outcomes – so even if you have some “bad luck” you still feel like you had a degree of influence (if not direct control).

In Blood Bowl you could wait until your “best players” have moved and your opponent’s Star Player has yet to go, then throw down a sneaky “reset the deck” action card. Replace and shuffle up. They may still get to move their Star Player on their very next turn of the card. Or they may have shuffled them straight to the bottom – who knows? Random outcomes – but with player influence.

Something similar for moving in army/skirmish games instead of rolling-with-modifiers for initiative could be a really nice mechanic too; not just the action of resetting the deck, but choosing *when* to as part of an overall strategy. It means more decision making and less reliance on dice rolls. But still with a random element.

Predictable random-ness. It’s the garlic bread of wargaming, I keep telling you 😉

 

@onlyonepinman – define perfect? For me, the perfect wargame has a random element mechanic that players can influence strategically! This is the hill I’m prepared to die on !!