Reversion to the Sword

A couple of ideas in relation to roleplaying games:

(1) the idea of a culture deliberately abandoning gunpowder weapons and reverting to the sword, as happened in Japan.

(2) social implications for magic users based on medieval cultural practices of war.

…and a few notes from my Dragon Age game.

Reversion to the Sword

I’m inspired by Noel Perrin’s Giving up the Gun: Japan’s reversion to the Sword, 1543-1879.  Japan had a culture which encountered firearms, quickly adopted them, and had the industrial skill to manufacture and improve on the imported technology.  After some trial and error, firearms became crucial weapons used in battle.  Yet, after unification under the Tokugawas, Japan largely gave up the use of firearms for 250 odd years.

A few key points here:

(1) Someone has to want the use of firearms to be given up

(2) They need enough power to make this happen

(3) There needs to be no external threat requiring firearms to be dealt with.

Japan had a unified government (2), which was based on a Samurai social class which was distinguished by skill in traditional weapons.  Firearms were easy to learn, affordable, and any peasant with an arquebus could kill a veteran Samurai at range.  So the potential threat to the social order motivates (1) and the Japanese disarm both firearms and other weapons held by the peasants.  As an island nation, Japan was able to isolate itself from external influences (3) and it took a long time before anyone outside Japan was motivated enough to go and take a look.  The real history is probably more complex than that, and Perrin’s work has had strong criticism for simplifying history to fit his views, but its a good basis for a narrative.

For a cliched fantasy setting, the traditional feudal class of western Europe would stand in for the Samurai, but I can also imagine that miracle wielding Priests and sorcerous mages would also stand opposed to the spread of firearms (“I spent thirteen years learning how to cast a fireball, and that buffoon learns how to fire a handgonne in three weeks”).  Having multiple centres of social power opposed to firearms would make it harder to reintroduce them.

So, people know firearms existed, and probably have a name for them that the elders know, and they are largely not around anymore, except possibly as a prerogative of the higher social estates, or for agents of the government.  If not an island nation, or otherwise isolated by distance and harsh wastelands, perhaps the realm is a very large Empire – one so old and powerful it has no peers or rivals to challenge it.  Another alternative might be that there is a Dark Lord ruling the realm, and they have forbidden the use of firearms, even if this is sufficiently contrary to reason to ensure the Dark Lord’s demise when the forces of good invade with their Boomsticks.  One side-effect of being a post-firearms society, is that you could have other post-medieval technology around without it being too out of place.

So in these settings what roles do firearms play for players?

• potential macguffin to drive the plot of an adventure (find and rescue/destroy the gun, gunpowder, gunsmith, book of gun lore, etc)
• possession is a symbol of favoured status in the realm
• or possession is a sign of rebellion against the realm/membership of a criminal gang, cult or clan of ninjas
• a character element – demonstrates the character is not a good member of a social class opposed to firearms
• a potential reward/power-up gained through adventures
• possibly a long term goal to research/engineer the lost technology
• if the bad guys have firearms, then they can be painfully scary bad as the lead slugs penetrate enchanted mithril like a hot knife through butter
• weather is important … firearms don’t work so well in the rain
• if gunpowder is hard to find/expensive, then as a scarce resource decisions about whether or not to use it to kill an Ogre should be interesting decisions for the players to make.

Magic and War

I was reading Richard Abels Cultural Representation and the Practice of War in the Middle Ages (Journal of Medieval Military History, Volume VI, 2008) which, inter alia, looked at how medieval knights reconciled chivalric literature/culture (how war should be fought) with the brutal realities of combat (how war must be fought if you are to survive it).  Keeping in mind that in any given society there will be multiple cultural interpretations of correct behaviour, I thought it interesting to think a bit about how magic users, as an estate/social class like knights, might perceive warfare and how it should be approached.

One approach is for the mages to adopt attitudes similar to the medieval church, being inclined towards peace rather than war, and moderating the practices of war to minimise non-combatant suffering and collateral damage to (for example) libraries, laboratories and isolated towers where mages live.

Honourable, unremarkable and shameful behaviour:

• honourable behaviour is that which enhances reputation (martial glory, should involve a degree of risk to the wizard concerned)
• unremarkable behaviour is the normal day to day actions that do not attract comment (if a magic user is busy being a magic usurer and concentrating on material profit, its unlikely to be viewed as honourable behaviour)
• shameful behaviour (cowardice, oath-breaking, black magic etc).

Circumstances and context play a role here.  A mage who kills prisoners who have just been captured and are still in armour, when the prisoner’s friends threaten to attack, is unlikely to be thought to have engaged in shameful behaviour.  The mage who takes their prisoners off to a secure location and then sacrifices them to a demon, is probably going to be thought ill of.  If the cultural group has some vilified enemies (heretics, orcs, demon-worshippers, etc) then harder methods may be used against them than against more honourable opponents.

For medieval knights, there is a strong connection between honour and prowess (being a good warrior in battle).  If mages share this view, then honourable action for a mage in battle involves using their magic to great effect, not hoarding their spells for later use.  A key difference here, is that in most game worlds, mages are “squishy” and non-users of serious metal armour.  So a mage takes big risks on the battlefield, one stray arrow and ten years of college education goes down the drain.  Looking at examples from Joinville’s Life of St Louis, Knights would discuss honour mid-battle, when trying to determine if going for help or running away was an honourable course of action. Running away and leaving your comrades behind is nearly always going to be seen as shameful action, which is a potential problem for squishy mages.

Where a mage differs from some medieval knights, is that they will be literate (although after about the 12th century literacy was getting common among the higher nobility, in part because you needed it if the lawyers were not going to rob you blind).  This means a mage is quite capable of correcting the course of history by making sure that the written account of a battle shows that their conduct was honourable (“I did not teleport away until after the standard fell and the King was captured…”)

One reason for the raiding and looting that occurred in medieval warfare, was that “war must pay for itself”.  Wars were often funded on the basis of expected profits from invasion. Fortunes could be made in minutes after a successful battle (When King Jean the Good of France was being squabbled over by various parties as to who had captured him after the Battle of Poitiers, he is alleged to have said “Gentleman, I can make you all rich!”).  So nobles at war paid for their troops with a mix of cash, loot, chickens and promises.  A mage is going to expect at least the same.  A mage serving as a mercenary is probably after hard currency, or perhaps first choice of the relics captured on campaign.  A mage fulfilling feudal obligations probably has customary limits to that obligation, perhaps 40 days service in the field.  A knight would expect to have their horse replaced by their Lord if it was killed in battle, a Mage will expect similar reimbursement for alchemical expenditure, loss of apprentices, harm to familiars, etc.

One of the medieval writers on warfare and its customs wrote “call no man a soldier if he does not know how to set fire to things”.  While the chivalric ideal of warfare emphasised noble deeds of arms against other knights and nobles, the knights of the middle ages understood that warfare as it was actually practiced involved rape, pillage and destruction.  Now any decent mage should have a fireball spell, so that means they can do the practical side of destruction easily enough, and perhaps mages are effective at intimidating reluctant peasants into revealing where their food stocks have been hidden.  But after consideration of the dirty necessities, what particular actions would a mage engage in, in order to enhance their reputation – which is why the knights are seeking deeds of arms, as reputation increases their status among fellow knights and the chance of rewards from the King.

If the mages in our fantasy reality have a code of conduct similar to the chivalric code, then we can expect a degree of adherence to that code. For example, picking up on an element of Samurai culture, for formal duels and battles between mages, you could have a cultural tradition of introductions.  In this case, the introduction involves telling your opponents your true name.  So if a mage flees the battle, their enemy has the ability to use their true name to easily find them through scrying magic or to work up a more effective curse or voodoo doll.  Thinking a bit further about dueling  would it be possible for mages to engage in a “martial sport” of a magic tournament, which provides a warlike training setting, competition for prizes, but is expected to be sub-lethal in outcomes (but not guaranteed).  Perhaps mages have an expectation of ransom from other mages, or a tradition of servitude for a set period if taken prisoner.

One important element of deeds of arms, is that they are public.  People see you doing them.  So if a mage is deployed in skullduggery, or the magical equivalent of electronic warfare, opportunities for public recognition and renown are slim.  Effective results may convince the King to reward, but a large pile of bodies with your signature singe marks on them is undeniable evidence of your prowess.  This suggests to me, that on a battlefield a mage is likely to add a few twists to their spells, to make them showy.  ”The blue fireball, your majesty, the one that toasted their champion, that was my spell, as you can see it turned my fingernails blue…”

My Dragon Age Campaign

My “Secrets of Samaria” game has been running for almost three years now.  One current frustration is that the player’s characters have just about out-levelled the available rulebooks, and the third set has been “Coming Soon” for about six months now.  On the whole the Dragon Age system is a simple old school system.  Where its creaking a bit is from the combination of high hit point totals and a system where armour reduces damage. Now that most of the party has either high defence or high armour scores, its getting harder and harder for me to challenge them.

On the whole, the players still seem to be having fun and are interested in uncovering the next few “secrets”. It has been very worthwhile for me, seeing them get a clue, then cross-reference it back to stuff that happened years ago, and figure out the connections, back story, probable NPC motive, and then proceed to formulate a cunning new plan.  So in that sense the year or so I spent thinking and writing up background before the campaign started has paid off very well.

I have found that social interactions really eat up time.  The players blitzed a dungeon level in less time than it takes to do the formal introductions for a Clan Ball in the Eleven Capital of Trion.  On the other hand, the players do enjoy the social stuff, but I did not plan ahead, having three major social challenges for the party prior to the dungeon.  That took eight sessions (including travel time to the city), which with fortnightly games was over four months real time.  I can improve a bit there.

Anyhow, the players have started figuring out all of the major factions and what their goals are, they just have to make some decisions soon about who they will ally with long-term in order to prevent the Dragons from setting the whole world a fire in a few game years…

… so I am starting to plan story arcs that can bring the campaign to a satisfactory conclusion, but there is probably one-two years left at least.  My brain is starting to turn towards future projects though, possibly something involving Runequest VI.

 

Pax Victoria – Naval Combat

 

Map Progress

Some more work done on the map today: borders and cities added, railways and ocean zones, nations have been named with suitably English themed names.  All nations except Midland have three cities, Midland has four.  All nations have some kind of rail network, except Lumbria. Midland is the only nation with a good rail network, and there are definitely places that are barren of railways.  Before the game starts player teams will have the opportunity to build some more railways and cities (or to increase their standing armies and fleets).

Naval Framework

One lesson I have learned for rapidly adjudicating combats for control of zones is to avoid having stacks of a dozen or three dozen units. It takes a long time to count them.  So one big step for navies in Pax Vicky is that each nation will have a small number of Fleet units, perhaps 3-6 each depending on pre-war options.  Each Fleet will have a strength of 6-9, representing various squadrons of battleships and support ships (and strength will depend in part on pre-war options).

So on the Pax Vicky map I have around 27 sea zones, each with a name and a control box.  This is less than the number of fleets the nations will have.  While some sea zones will fall naturally into one player’s sphere of influence, others will be hotly contested.  Midland has one of the worst naval positions, having three different areas of naval operations, and no easy way to transfer forces between them.  All nations are within 2-3 sea zones of the Crown Lands, the uncontrolled territory at the start of the game.  Any nation or coalition of nations able to control the Crown Lands and maintain a convoy route there will gain a considerable economic boost in the game.

You control a sea zone if you have units in the control box.  If you don’t control a sea zone, your naval counters are placed anywhere in the sea zone, outside of the control box.

Some cities are located on the boundary lines of sea zones, this is deliberate and will allow fleets based there to project forces in either sea zone easily (or at least get repairs more effectively).

As well as the main battle fleets players will have some supporting naval units:

• Merships (Merchant Ships), contribute towards gaining trade cards.
• Naval HQs, allow naval movement, essentially a coaling station or squadron of colliers
• Cruisers, escort Merships
• Raiders, raid Merships.

Naval Combat Theory

There are two main approaches to steam age naval warfare with bloody big battleships: seek decisive battle, or avoid decisive battle and raid the enemy where they are weak.  You generally try and seek decisive battle when you have a superior battle fleet  or if you are pressed by circumstances to gamble.  Mahan’s advice here is to “never divide the fleet” (i.e. if you split your fleet up and send it in different directions, its likely to be defeated in detail).  When you are weaker, a sound strategy is to hide your fleets in safe habours, emerging only when the situation changes.  Meanwhile, smaller vessels are sent off to raid the enemy shipping lanes, sinking ships, disrupting commerce, driving up insurance rates, and so forth.  In the 20th century this was largely done with submarines, although to keep things simple for Pax Vicky I am assuming raiders to be light cruisers, with the endurance to sail a long way away from home bases.

The strategic objective of naval combat is control of the seas.  In Pax Vicky there is a bonus to be gained from being able to trade, and a massive penalty for being blockaded (having no sea zone that you control adjacent to a friendly controlled port).

Naval Movement

Naval Forces have infinite movement through sea zones where naval HQs are present.  Movement stops if you enter a sea zone without an HQ, and only Raider unis can move from a zone without an HQ into another zone without an HQ (all other forces have to go home and refuel).

Naval Combat Decision

Naval combat is optional.  The oceans are big and easy to hide in.  If a player does want to fight they can choose to either raid, or seek decisive battle, but not both in the same turn in the same sea zone.  Naval forces can only fight once per turn.  If you control a sea zone, with a fleet, and no other fleets are present, you can automatically assert control and force all Cruisers, HQs, and Merships controlled by other players to leave that zone.

Naval Combat Step One – Interception

Draw a card for the attacking player.  The card will have a number from 1-10.  If this number is greater than the enemy fleet strength, then they are not found and no battle occurs.  If the enemy fleet is found, draw a card to see if their scouts spot the attacker.  This happens if the card number is equal or less than the attacker’s strength.  If the attacker is not spotted, then the defending fleet has been ambushed.

Naval Combat Step Two – Battle

Draw two cards for a Fleet that is stronger than an enemy Fleet.  Draw one card for Fleets of equal or weaker strength.  Draw a bonus card for an Ambush.  Note that there is a strong advantage in favour of the stronger fleet which is difficult to reverse except through luck or attrition over time.

A card “hits” and does damage if the number on it is equal or less than Fleet strength.  Otherwise the card “misses” and does no damage.  A small number of cards have symbols for critical hits and inflict two damage if successful, otherwise damage is one per card.

Each hit on a Fleet reduces its strength by one.  Mark this by placing a counter on the Fleet.  Any Fleet with five or more damage counters is no longer capable of remaining at sea, and retreats to the closest controlled port.  Damage counters persist until repaired in a logistics phase.

Naval Battle – Outcome

A Fleet loses the battle if it is forced to retreat from five points of damage accumulation. If a Fleet misses with all cards when its opponent hits with at least one card, it also loses.

If both Fleets score at least one hit, fight another round of combat.  Repeat as necessary until a winner is determined or both fleets are forced to retreat.

Note that five points of damage will take a long time to repair, possibly as many as three naval logistic turns.

Naval Battles – Cruisers and Raiders

This is similar to Fleet battles, however the Raider is attempting to intercept the Mership, while the Cruiser is attempting to intercept the Raider.  So a Raider always ambushes a Mership, and a Cruiser always ambushes a raider (if they manage to intercept at all).  All these units have a nominal strength of 5, although a Mership cannot damage a Raider.  Any damage done to a Raider, Cruiser, or Mership forces it to retreat.

Pax Victoria Map Design

You may have to click on the image to see the headings clearly.

I am yet to commit to firm boundaries and city placements on the map, mainly concentrating on where the nations will go, and how many other nations they will be adjacent to. The Fallow Lands zone is some empty space for the players to squabble over, and a major reason to contemplate building a long range amphibious capability.

As a rough rule of thumb for geopolitics, the more states your state is adjacent to, the more likely you are to find it difficult to defend yourself.   Terrain can modify this (such as mountains, rivers and fortresses).  So on the whole those states listed as Peninsula Powers have only two land neighbours to worry about.  The obvious strategy here is to ally with one against the other.

The Canal Power will control a route through the narrow isthmus of land that permits Naval forces to move swiftly between the “interior” and “exterior” oceans. Possibly influential, but it has long coastline that is hard to defend against landings, and four neighbours to worry about.

The Island Power, by dint of having no land neighbours, will probably be a strong naval power like England.  Its controlling players could choose to build a lot of land units, but its not going to do them a lot of good.

The Small Power is the potential Switzerland of the map. It has short borders that could be completely fortified by a defensive player, but the key to its success would be skillful diplomacy.

The Central Power is the hub of the main continent, especially as all the railway networks will connect up in its cities, giving it a strong logistic base and the ability to move armies around on interior lines.  It does have to worry about the Land Power though.  The Land Power is big and has only one obvious route for landward expansion.  I may make it harder for it strategically by giving the offshore island to another nation and possibly giving a strip of its southern coastline to another player as well.

The Medium Power will be weaker than the two largest powers, but stronger than the other powers. Its interesting diplomatic challenge is going to be steering a course between neutrality or alliance with the larger powers.

Starting Forces

Before changes are made by players, each state will have an existing army and navy that is based on its geography. Naval strength will be based on length of coastline, number of ports, and the number of sea zones the nation is adjacent to. Army strength will be based on the number of controlled hexes, number of cities, and the number of adjacent nations.

Nations are likely to have around 10 units per player on the nation team, but some will have stronger armies than navies, or vice versa, and not all units will be available at the start of the game (i.e. reserve forces will be built during the game).  Its going to be impossibly for most nations to garrison their entire land border (the small and island powers are an exception) so that feeling of vulnerability is going to encourage diplomacy and surprise attacks.

Next Steps

Naming the countries and drawing definite borders. Then the cities and railways need to go on the land mass, and the sea control zones on the oceans.

Pax Vicky: Iteration, Iteration, Iteration

Successful game design requires iteration.  Iteration requires you to recognise that your brilliant  idea is not going to work, and then coming up with a new brilliant idea. Which probably won’t work either, but at least it feels like progress!

Pax Victoria is going through an iteration process, as I turn several interlocking sets of mechanics over in my mind.  They key mechanics I need to cover are:

(1) Pre-game grand strategy formulation and its flow through impact onto all choices made in game

(2) An attrition based land combat system (i.e. its a meat grinder system if both sides are evenly matched)

(3) A maneuver based naval combat system (i.e. one which often results in no battle at all, or a decisive victory/defeat)

(4) “Twitter Diplomacy” – all written agreements must be done in 140 characters or less

(5) An economics/logistics system to allow units to be built/replaced and to track economic fatigue and eventual economic collapse.

I’m well into my third  iteration for all except the diplomacy rules.  For the second iteration I made my usual mistake of creating a dice game, and after a couple of happy days of meshing all the synergies together, I remembered what a PITA it is for GMs to spend time sorting dice and figuring out if a roll was good/bad hit/miss critical/boring and then implementing it in game.  So I took the numbers and underlying math and turned them into a card game of sorts.

For a World War One style game I am influenced by various history books and Great War boardgames that I have played, especially Ted Racier’s Paths of Glory.  So there a few key features I want to represent:

1. Railway networks and supply lines are important. Industrial armies cannot survive by living off the land. If their supply line is cut they collapse quickly.
2. Cavalry units are largely ineffective, unless a gap is created for them, or their opponents are weak.
3. Artillery is the Queen of the battlefield – it was responsible for far more lives lost than the machinegun
4. Fortresses are situationally powerful. Build them in the right place and they work like magic, build them in the wrong place and watch the enemy ignore them.
5. Mobilisation of reserve forces is important.
6. Enveloping units on multiple flanks, or pressing on all sides of a salient, is a tactically strong move.
7. In a battle of resources, it makes strategic sense for an economically powerful country to focus on attrition, while a militarily powerful nation will be striving for the “Short, victorious war” beloved of politicians down through the ages.

So I have roughly six types of units with the following qualities:

• a movement rate of zero to two hexes
• a strength rating of zero to six
• a range rating of zero to two hexes
• a stamina rating of zero to two.

Guards

A Guards unit is an elite infantry unit. These will be limited in number.

Full Strength (5) Stamina (1)

Half Strength (2) Stamina (2)

Guards units are tough, the only unit at reduced strength with a strength greater than one, and the only unit with a stamina of two for a glorious last stand around the regimental colours.

Artillery

Artillery is a support unit. Like Guards, Artillery will be in short supply.

Full Strength (6) Stamina (0)

Half Strength (1) Stamina (1)

Special Ability: Because there will only be one unit in most hexes, artillery contribute their strength to any battle within two hexes of the hex they occupy.

Special Weakness: Artillery are the strongest land unit in the game, but at full strength they have a stamina of zero, so if involved in combat they must automatically flip to half strength.  This will make it hard to sustain attacks, as sooner or later you will need to resupply your artillery units back to full strength to keep attacking.

Regular

The standard army unit, no special abilities or features, other than being the most common unit on the map.  All nations will have a similar number of Regular units.

Full Strength (4) Stamina (1)

Half Strength (1) Stamina (1)

Reserve

Reserve units do not start the game on the map. They must be built during the game.  Nations will have very different reserve force pools, based on their grand strategy.  Effectively a weaker version of the Regular unit, but cheaper to build, and in quantity they have their own quality.

Full Strength (3) Stamina (1)

Half Strength (1) Stamina (1)

Cavalry

The last of the limited number elite units, Cavalry are good for rapid advances against light opposition or exploiting gaps in weak defensive lines.  Attacking solid defences, not so good.

Full Strength (2) Stamina (1)

Half Strength (1) Stamina (1)

Special Ability: If a gap is created in the enemy lines to the green fields beyond, cavalry units can move to the gap, and then onwards one hex into vacant enemy territory.

Headquarters

A Headquarters (HQ) is a supply source. If attacked in combat it collapses as Generals flee for safety. It counts as a Rail hex, so if you form a continuous chain of HQs you can carry supplies deep into the wilderness, or use the HQ line to bring reinforcements into the campaign.

Strength (0) Stamina (0)

Fortress

A strong defensive unit that is immobile. Good for defending cities, railway junctions, or key border crossings.

Full Strength (6) Stamina (+1)

Half Strength (3) Stamina (+1)

Special Abilities: (1) Acts like an artillery unit for support, but does not flip. (2) Can have a garrison unit stacked with it (3) Increase the Stamina of any garrison unit by +1 (4) Acts as source of supply for its Hex (5) Counts as a rail hex.

So those are the units.  Apart from Forts, I am keen to avoid any kind of stacking on the map, single counters are far faster to count and so will help players make good informed decisions in less time.

As for the crunchy bit of combat, after playing around with die rolls and realising that would be too hard I thought about a system where you pulled one card from a deck per stamina point the defending unit has.  Today I had the brainwave that it would be faster to pre-print cards with multiple entries for Stamina-1, Stamina-2, Stamina-3 etc.  Each Stamina line has a number, which is the total strength the combined attacking units require to defeat the defender and force a retreat.  Each line will be 1-10 strength, average of 6, accumulating over the lines.  So if attacking a Regular unit (Stamina 1), if you draw a card and get six on the Stamina-1 line, then if you are attacking with only a Guards unit (Strength 5) you fail, but if attacking with two Reserve Units (Strength 3 x 2 =6) you succeed.

Units would get a +1 stamina bonus for defending beaches, cities, mountains or rivers.

The defending unit is always reduced in strength by the attack, unless the card has a symbol indicating that the defender does not flip (I’m thinking of having this on about 10% of the cards).

The attacker flips a number of units equal to the defender’s stamina, plus all supporting artillery.  I may have symbols on a few cards (10-30% of the deck perhaps) indicating that elite units have their effective strength increased, perhaps even doubled, for that battle.  So while overall outcomes are predictable, there is enough variation to keep it interesting.

So how do you win a land war in the Southeast Colonies?

1. Attack reduced strength or stamina 0 units, with full strength units.   A destroyed unit costs more to build than a half strength unit costs to reinforce.

2. Envelop or surround a unit so you can attack with 3+ units, increasing your strength to guarantee a forced retreat. If you keep taking a hex a turn, after a few turns you will be in their capital city.

3. Use overwhelming force, Guard units supported by artillery can smash through on a narrow one hex front if the defender does not have stamina boosting terrain, Strength 5 + Strength 6 = Strength 11 total versus a maximum of Strength 10 on the One Stamina line of a Battle card.

4. Bloody Attrition, from a position of economic strength attack with expendable units so that you create a situation where (1) is possible.

5. Counterattack, wait for them to attack you when you are in stamina boosting terrain, then counterattack while they are weak.

Both 1 and 5 are going to depend a on when teams draw their logistic chits (the number of which you have are determined by pre-game grand strategy choices). Its going to be nerve wracking to see if the reinforcements arrive in time for the big push, or whether you signal to home that its been delayed by mud.

Next Steps

I need to ponder the naval combat design for a while longer, but I can probably do a post soon on how I see the pre-game Grand Strategy choices working.  I also need to do some thinking on the economics.  I found some economic analysis of GDP figures in World War One recently, and while the USA and UK had GDP growth during the war, all the other great powers lost a large chunk of GDP, despite massive increases in the government share of GDP.  So while a wartime economy works, more or less, it does not create an infinite supply train of resources, so I suspect peak wartime strength might only be around 20% above fully mobilised pre-war strength.

Trillium Bars

If you follow the legendary quest chain in Patch 5.2 for World of Warcraft, you will hit “Secrets of the Empire”, which requires 20 Secrets of the Empire from the Throne of Thunder raid instance, and 40 Trillium Bars.

While the raid drop will be the more time consuming item to acquire, the Trillium Bars are likely to cost a fair whack of gold.  40 Bars is a lot, my server Auction House had 113 bars listed this morning for around 80g each.  So just three raiders would clean the AH out.  So I predict that the price for Trillium Ore will go up a bit, possibly some very spiky bursts, as will the price of Trillium Bars.  If Trillium Bar prices stay high, then ghost iron ore, bars and living steel go up as well.

So its a good time to grab any cheap Mists ore you see on the AH (I’m snaffling trillium ore <10g and ghost iron ore at <2g), and if you are a raider it would not hurt to stockpile the 40 Bars early.  I’m pretty sure I could make the bars for around 40g each at the moment, so that’s half the current AH price and a potential saving of 1,600+ gold when the patch goes live.

Caveat: its the PTR, everything could change.

How I quit raiding and learned to enjoy playing World of Warcraft again

On my mother’s deathbed I promised her that I would learn to drive, buy my own house, and be happy.

Before Christmas I started adding up the hours required to achieve all the things I wanted to do in 2013.  It became obvious that my weekly World of Warcraft rotation was taking way too much time.  A rough tabulation of activities:

• Mobile app AH play for 5-10 minutes each workday morning
• On getting home, relist expired auctions and use daily cooldowns for Alchemy, Enchanting, Inscription, and Tailoring
• Make buckles, BOE blue weapons and other plate gear/shields for AH sale
• Sigh in frustration as no one buys my raw gems, cut gems, or metagems
• Run through the Tillers farm on three-four alts, with Tillers quests on whichever toon just hit 90
• Run a scenario for VP, run a 5 man if the tank bag appears
• Bang out the required dailies on my raiding main, getting some mining in en route
• Hit the AH again
• Start running LFR for the week, continue running LFR, keep running LFR until I hit VP cap
• Two three hour sessions of raiding, plus half hour+ of raid prep
• Hit the AH again
• Maybe … spend a couple of hours at the weekend levelling an alt
• Maybe … heal a random Battleground
• Maybe … do a xmog run of old content with guildies.

So World of Warcraft was easily eating three hours a night of my time, plus more in the weekends.  For what its worth I currently have 1.927 million gold, despite spending over 250,000 gold after the expansion launched.

I was feeling frustrated with guild progression in the current tier (6/6 MV, 3/6 HOF, nothing in TOES).  I was personally finding the fights difficult to execute, every boss was just more fucking mechanics layered on top of new fucking mechanics.  I read a blog where an experienced tank was cackling with glee over how hard and refreshing Vaults was to run.  I hated it.  Almost every damn fight, but especially the first one. I couldn’t believe that was an introductory fight in an introductory tier of raiding.  Watch energy build up, while kiting out of bad stuff, but not so far as to break the chains … hated it.  Will of the Emperor, I’m supposed to know which way to dodge based on how the boss is standing. This is a case where martial arts experience was useless, as I dodged into the blow every single fucking time.  In the end I just gave up, stood still and mitigated the damage as best I could.

Healing was less fun than it used to be. Holy Paladin healing is now based around free heals. The moment you start to use heals that cost mana, the mana bar collapses. I found that using my Guardian required me to keep 40-50% of my mana bar, or else it was a waste of time dropping the guardian because I would go OOM before the 4th or 5th heal went off.  This makes the healing rotation easy, but boring. Holy Shock on cooldown, Holy Light in between  then Word of Glory or Light of Dawn as a finisher.  Repeat, for 6+ minutes.  Through 5.0 and 5.1 I was decidedly behind the Monk and Priest healer on all the metrics that count.  While my raid position was in no danger, I no longer felt awesome as a healer … for progression kills with two healers, it felt like I was healing mainly because I was the worst tank available.

So one morning at work I decided to stop.  After work I still felt good about that call.  Posted to the guild forums. Went on a last raid.

The last thing I expected to happen when I stopped raiding was that I would actually really enjoy playing World of Warcraft again in short one hour bursts.  I no longer log in every day, but when I do I have a good time.  I run one LFR each week, and then play either my Fire Mage, Healer Monk, or Warrior Tank for an hour.  Its fun, and the moment it feels grindy, I stop and log out of the game. When I play the AH, I just do belt buckles, plus junk I found while questing.  One thing I foresee for 5.2, having a legendary metagem will further depress prices in a market saturated with sellers and few buyers.

One bonus of stopping raiding is more time for content creation.  So I am looking forward to more time spent on roleplaying games, boardgames, and the Grand Strategy game for Buckets of Dice.  Plus a few more blog posts here from time to time.

In World of Tanks news, I reached Tier X in the Soviet Tree with an IS-7, which immediately proved frustrating in play. After 50+ matches I’m on a 20% win rate.  Despite being a fast tank, the armour is pitiful and the reload time on the gun is agonizingly slow.  So I am back to concentrating on Soviet TDs, with both the SU-100M1 and SU-152 in play each evening. Of the two I find the SU-152 more fun, the higher mobility of the SU-100M1 does not influence play very often, but its weaker armour and gun does.  The SU-122-44 also gets a run each night, often resulting in a blitz in assault destroyer mode as the game enters endgame – damn its fun sneaking up behind a heavy and one shotting them in the engine.

At the lower tiers the main regular tanks I play with are the H35, which I play like a TD with the Sixth Sense skill, the Renault UE57, KV-1 and last of all, the KV-2 loaded with “electrum rounds” (gold rounds purchased with silver).  I did exceptionally well with the KV-2 in a Tier VI-VIII match last night, managing to get three kills on Tier VIII tanks with the 152mm Howitzer over medium ranges in Redridge by sneaking up through the village and pumping 700+ damage in through side armour or engine covers.  Two weeks back I took the Hetzer out for a rare spin, and drew Highway map and three artillery per side.  Myself and two medium tanks went to town, while seven enemy tanks went to town.  Things looked bad when my two medium escorts were destroyed.  Then three enemy tanks come around the corner one at a time, and I destroyed them one at a time.  I drove up to the corner, spotted an enemy TD around the corner.  I looked at the strategic map – the rest of my team was almost on the enemy flag, having swept the open field clear.  So I hooned around the corner, lost half my health, but was not tracked.  Turned, killed the TD, BOOM, reload, BOUNCE, target medium tank, BOOM, reload, BOUNCE, BOUNCE, target medium tank BOOM, reload, BOUNCE, target medium tank BOOM!  So I ended up with a seven run Reaper Award which was nice.

I am also mucking around in Skyrim again, restarting from the beginning and following the Imperial and Mage story lines.  Same principle as WoW, play in one hour bursts then do something else with my time.  Its pretty, but I miss the MMO aspect of MMO games, no matter how well down the RPG is.

 

Kapcon 2013 Reflections

TLDR: I had fun, but the gaming world is changing and its time for me to be a grumpy old man.

Some quick post-convention thoughts on the Kapcon gaming convention this weekend.

First is the way the games being run have changed over the years.  I see a strong move away from old school published games from big companies, towards Indie games.  I can see why, the old school games were designed for running long campaigns, and their simulationist mind set focuses on incremental rewards and character improvement.  Indie games are more like tvtropes on speed, and very much focus on grabbing immediate player engagement and permitting them to do a lot of swashbuckling Hollywood stuff.  Even the old niche humor/horror games of Paranoia and Call of Cthulhu are vanishing under the relentless tide of Indie games.

Second, is that LARP is eating the tabletop games.  Overall convention numbers are stable, but numbers taking part in LARP over tabletop are increasing.  As a friend commented, LARP attracts all the good immersive roleplayers. This leaves a lot of tabletop games to collapse from lack of numbers, or to be filled by passive players who just sit back and watch one guy talk for three hours.  I’m honestly not sure I should ever bother trying to run a tabletop game at Kapcon again – I’m simply not a good enough Rockstar GM to attract enough players for the game to be fun for me to run.

Third, convention organisation remains strong, improving every year.  Two first-timers I helped bring along were very impressed and had a good time.

I played three games and ran one, and spent a bit of time working on Pax Victoria.  I bailed for home rather than wait around for the prize-giving (pretty sure I was not going to get a mention for either GMing or playing, and sitting around through 45 minutes of talking and clapping when the brain is tired just doesn’t thrill me anymore).

(1) Too Big to Fail (GM Paul Wilson): after playing this I resolve to never ever play a game where you roleplay people playing roleplaying games gain.  It was so meta-meta I struggled to know what to do at any point in time, especially as I selected Jim Butcher who had a “Serious Roleplayer, don’t break character” character, so I might as well have not been playing Jim Butcher.  When the GM has to to tell you the Paladin’s horses name (Charlene) is an in-joke, the its not an in-joke anymore because only the GM is in on the in joke.  The final fight was over in two rounds, which felt too short for me.

(2) Too Many Draculas (GM Mike Sands): my first experience of the Monster of the Week system was good. Characters were easily generated, and the scenario meant that anytime it slowed the GM just added another Dracula.  We got through 11 Draculas, and my cantankerous granddad vampire hunter was fun to play, with my decisions meshing well with the other characters.  Slight look of shock on the other PCs at my willingness to use them as bait, but oh well such is life.  I liked this game so much I went and bought the PDF from DriveThruRPG.com.

(3) Price Slash (GM Dale Elvy): Again, a very strong focus on pretending you’re in a movie, with montages and flashbacks.  Character generation was more of a work in progress, and I failed to mesh well with the other characters, so ended up pretty much a loner. It was frustrating to feel a few times that the GM skipped past me (he often started with the player to my left, and by the time Dale got to me he seemed to have the next frame in mind and wanted to move onto it quickly), so the more active/enthusiastic players got a bit more character development in.  On the plus side, my laundry man/mafia assassin got a three year extension on his seven year deal with the Devil. The game was run with the EPOCH system, which worked, but had a lot of cards and counters on the table.

My own game, Last Stand at Salang was not a great success. It was old school, using Runequest VI, the latest version of a 1970s game, with three pages of character sheets, a colour map, and two pages of combat charts for each player.  It was possibly the only 1970s era game run at the con.  Because three of the four players were passive, it was mostly a military logistics game with one player dominating the talking and the die rolling, with the final battle taking the last 30 minutes. The player with the Dragonslaying sword failed to hit the Dragon three times, and then the Dragon did 13 HP (after armour) to the leg, biting it off, fade to black, a very scorched black.   It was also frustrating to turn up on Sunday morning and have zero sign ups for the second playing of it. Oh well, at least I got a cookie from Idiot/Savant.

Thanks to James for giving me rides to and from Kapcon.  Its a PITA to get there by Bus from Newlands (especially if you want to shower/eat before the con starts).