Who am I anyway?

     Allow me to introduce myslef

     I should have done this post first. Oh well can't change it now. Who am I? Or more appropriately; why should anyone read this blog? Well I am not a known figure in any miniature related groups. I've never won cons or major tourneys. I don't even play in them. That's not to say I haven't won a couple steamrollers at my local game store though. I just don't take part in the major events. That aside, I have been playing miniature games for 18 years now. Perhaps I should just start from the beginning.

     As a kid I was very fond of fantasy books. I read a lot of Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, Ravenloft and Tolkien. I was into some choose your own adventure books too, can't remember the names though, was it Lone Wolf? Anyway I came across a Lord of the Rings choose your own adventure book that was very different. It made me look deeper into the whole fantasy genre. I wanted to find out what Dungeons and Dragons was, as I had heard mention of it but never seen it. I didn't realize at the time that you can't play it by yourself. My quest led me to Fantasy Game World in Chico CA. I picked up some books and checked the store out. There were miniatures lining the walls. Board games and comics had their areas as well and some new rage that everyone was into. A card game called Magic: The Gathering.

     Card games were the gateway to miniature games for me. I played Magic, V:TES, Legend of the five rings and tried out a few others that were not so good. Soon enough I was buying miniatures for role playing games in addition to my card collecting. Then one day I took the plunge and picked up the box set for Warhammer Fantasy Battle 4th edition. Complete with High Elves, Orcs and Goblins and their card cutouts. I collected up a few more troops to round them off and began my 18 year stint as a miniature wargamer.

What I play, have played and why

     I started out with High Elves for Warhammer because they were in the rules box and I was not too keen on Orcs and Goblins. Eventually I became more into Wood Elves and sold most of the High Elf miniatures that I had. To me Wood Elves had a bit more interesting character, and their army book was just coming out at the time that I made the switch. It didn't last long though. Playing Wood Elves didn't really fit my personal style and I switched to Undead. I loved the model for the Zombie Dragon and the Vampire lord with the flowing cape. Screaming skull catapults and skeletal chariots all looked pretty cool at the time. When the Undead army was split in half I stuck with the Vampire Counts side because I just liked the dark vampire theme more than the Egyptian mummy thing. In the last couple years I've collected up an army of Bretonnians. I was going to use some of the knight models to make Black grail knights with, but decided to just collect up a Bretonnian army instead. So far I've only painted 21 of them...

     Any introduction to Warhammer at that time also naturally involved checking out GW's other games. I played Wood Elves in Blood Bowl because they were agile and quick. I had some Van Saar for Necromunda because they just looked the best out of all the gangs. It turns out they were basically the best in gaming terms too. For Mordheim I went with Undead because I already had a collection of Undead Warhammer miniatures. And finally 40k, Dark Angels and Eldar were my armies of choice. Dark Angels really looked the best in 40k back then and the Eldar were like space elves. Who doesn't like space elves? Well I sold my Eldar all except a few war walkers I still have in a box. Just couldn't keep up with painting my massive miniature collection and was downsizing my possessions at the time. In the last couple years I have been collecting and painting up some Death Korps of Krieg. Once again all of my choices were based on the looks of the miniatures themselves. Most people will agree with the Death Korps models being really awesome.

     On the non GW side I've collected two armies for Confrontation. The Undead of Acheron and the Alchemists of Dirz. Both have amazing models and a dark theme which I seem to like a lot. I absolutely loved the Dogs of War continuing campaign thing they came out with. The small scale skirmish feel was the best in this game I think but Rackham made some very poor choices and went out of business.

     For Warmachine and Hordes I've almost fully collected Cryx and Trollbloods. My first time seeing a game of Warmachine was between these two factions. I was looking for some miniature trees to make some scenery out of when I started watching that game. Shortly after that I started my own collection. I love the game too as it is really fun. When I started playing, 35 points was the norm. It was fast paced and relatively small model count. A true skirmish feel to it. But it didn't take long for 50 points to become the new thing. Then 75 points with the release of colossals and gargantuans. Bigger and bigger it got, in army size and miniature size. Don't get me wrong, I still love the game, it just takes a lot longer to play now and you need a lot of miniatures. And yes I know I can always just play 35 point games but no one really wants to do that. Everyone wants to practice their tourney lists or play in leagues.

     Most recently I've collected up some Flames of War miniatures. I have a pile of them. Some British troops in the form of Irish Guards. Some German troops in the form of Fallschirmjager, Heer and SS. I've got some American Paratroopers and a few Caliope tanks to boot. These are my first and maybe last 15mm miniatures. I thought a grand scale WW2 game would be a lot of fun but so far I've only had a few games with a friend who also had never played. We were trying to learn the rules together and I'll say this; Flames of War has the flat out worst possible rulebook layout known to mankind. Nothing is where you would expect it to be. I guess I should have gone to a game store to learn the game from some veterans there instead. Well other than that it's proven to be a fun game.

     So that's where I am sitting now. Thinking about collecting some 28mm WW2 figures for Bolt Action. Not sure if I will since I have too many miniatures as it is. I've also thought about Infinity but from what I've heard it may not be to my liking (rules) and the miniatures just don't really grab me. Another consideration I've had is Malifaux. It might be just right with a small skirmish type game. Not really a fan of the no dice system though. So who knows? Maybe Dust or Dark Age will get big and everyone will jump on that wagon.Well, there is my gaming history. Hope you enjoyed the wall of text. See you next time.

    

The mechanics of miniature games

     So I have been struggling to create a unique game mechanic for my game. It seems to me that everything has pretty much been done. The best mechanics are used in multiple games and sometimes they are disguised as something "new" when they are really not. So lets look at some of the options out there. I will call them the one die roll, two dice rolls and three dice rolls systems. For the record cards can be used in place of dice to generate random numbers but the mechanic is basically the same.

One die roll system

     One die roll systems are typically found in board games. They involve one all encompassing attack statistic vs an all encompassing defense statistic. Or perhaps one attack roll vs a set difficulty or target number. These types of games can be played fast and are very easy for everyone to learn. The downside is trying to add layers of complexity to something so simple can be impossible without adding attachments to every rule. And no one wants to spend all of their gaming time looking up rules in books. I was originally going to try and make the one die roll system work with my game. Every time I look into mechanics I drift farther from it as there is just no way to easily account for a number of things: weapon types is a big one, the guy who hits hard but can't hit very well opposed to the guy who hits all the time but does little damage.

Example

     Lets look at this example a bit closer. We have soldier A who is a highly skilled scrapper, he can hit you no matter how hard you try to dodge out of the way, but he uses a knife. So when he does get you it does little damage. Now we have soldier B who is a muscle-bound behemoth of a man, swinging a great two-handed sword. He swings wildly and it's easy to avoid, but if you get hit by it you are probably going to die. Now in order to assign these soldiers an attack value you have to consider how much skill they have and how much damage they can do. Even though they are drastically different soldiers, I am thinking their attack values might be pretty close to the same. This is the biggest problem with the one die roll system. Another example for future reference is on the defensive side of things. Soldier A is very agile and quick, but wears no armor. Soldier B is slow and flat footed but has heavy armor on. Are their defense values going to be the same as well?

Two dice rolls system

     This brings us the the two dice rolls system. In my opinion the best system. The two rolls involved are 1. A check to see if you hit your opponent. 2. A check to see if you damage your opponent. Step 2 usually also determines how much or to what extent damage is done. It's pretty simple like the one die roll system but still allows a wealth of complexity without adding attachments to the rules. In the above example with soldier A and B we now have defined roles for these troops. Soldier A will try to hit other soldier As. He does this because soldier B has no real chance to hit them. He doesn't go after soldier Bs because even though he can hit them reliably, he just can't do much to actually hurt them. Much better than giving everyone essentially the same statistics.

Three dice rolls system

     Finally the three dice rolls system. This system is essentially the two dice rolls system with an added (usually unnecessary in my opinion) step. After a hit and damage have been determined the defending player would get a chance to "save" his soldier. This is done by trying to reach a target number with a dice roll. I call it unnecessary because if I had rolled to damage your soldier why would you then roll to see if I didn't actually damage him? We just determined that, now we are going to check again? It's just repetitive to me. Of course there are some games out there that follow this system but roll in a different order, say make your hit, roll the save, then roll to damage. The only real benefit I can see in this added step is giving your opponent a chance to roll some dice "in defense".

Opposed vs non-opposed

     

     Watching your men die during your opponents turn, while not being able to do anything about it, can be a little dull sometimes.  But having to roll constantly during your turn and your opponents turn can get tiresome. Opposed dice rolls involve both players to make a roll to determine an outcome. Like the board game RISK, or the card game WAR. Both players roll or flip a card and whoever has the highest score wins. Applied to a miniature game, you would roll and add your attack vs the enemy rolling and adding his defense for instance. The same could then be done for damage and armor. The three dice rolls system implements one die roll that usually gets rolled by your opponent, thus involving him in the turn and creating an "almost" opposed roll. Non-opposed roll systems involve one player making all the rolls during his turn and the opponent just has to watch and deal with the outcome. I think both of these systems have some merits and of course some flaws. 

     Opposed rolls involve both players during a turn. This keeps both players from getting too distracted and you actually feel like you are fighting it out. The best way to implement this in my opinion is if you had some further choice in what to do. Defense wise, if I had the option to block, dodge or parry. And my roll or defensive statistics were different depending on what I chose, it would make the defending player just as involved as the attacker. And you wouldn't just be going through the motions either, you would be making choices. The downsides to this are competitive aspects of a game, and flow of a game. When you are playing on a chess clock or timed event, you will be relying on your opponent to move at the same pace as yourself. This can be a real drag for a lot of seasoned players. Another downside, if you don't have choices to make in defense then you might be just rolling to see who rolls the highest, which can be done more efficiently by having only the attacker trying to hit a target number. And speaking of efficiency, less people rolling dice makes for a smoother and faster gameplay.

Unconventional systems

     Non dice systems are essentially the same as dice systems. They just use some other form of generating a random number. Most commonly cards are used as you can have a number system and some face cards to represent special situations. Another unconventional system is to use different sided dice, four sided for rookies, six for normal soldiers and eight sided dice for veterans as example. While this may be pretty cool it requires all of your players to have to buy dice sets that they probably don't have. Strangely enough that is a turn off for me, but other "extra" purchases are, for some reason, not turn offs. 

So what am I going to do?

   

  So what am I going to do? I don't know really. I want something that flows well, involves both players and doesn't copy any other system. That's a tall order I know. I'm leaning towards staying clear of gimmick type systems too, but in the end the possibility is still open. Not sure weather opposed type rolls with tactical options will be good, but so far the more I think about it I like it. It allows for both players to be involved, and if enough choices are added then the outcome wont be so set in stone. For instance; I think Warmachine by Privateer Press has the best mechanics. The problem I see with their attack and damage (two dice rolls system) is that you know by an exact percentage what your success will be. So if you wanted to add more variables to it you could do this: Instead of a target number for defense, lower all defense values by 7 (the average on two dice)  and make the attack vs defense part of the game an opposed roll. Now you don't know the exact percentage of success. But it does slow things down a bit and become a "who can roll higher" contest. So what can be done to flavor this process? Add a few attack and defense options? Maybe some sort of rock, paper, scissors options for both attack and defense with the opposed roll. Think about it. The attacker will declare a "powerful swing" maybe it has a lower chance to hit but does more damage if it connects. The defender can declare "block, dodge or parry" type defensive options. Maybe blocking lowers your ability to avoid an attack but increases your ability to absorb the damage from it. Or dodging makes you harder to hit but if you do get hit you take more damage since you are not trying to absorb or deflect the blow. Perhaps an initiative value will determine who has to declare their intent first. Or maybe there will be some reference cards that you can play face down and flip over simultaneously. The more permutations to this mechanic the less I feel like I am copying someone. But all good miniature games require some sort of hit then damage rolling, meaning that you will be copying someone somewhere down the road maybe even without knowing it. I guess that's why mechanics are non-copyrightable.

Conclusion?

     Well that is all I am going to rant about today. I'm still not really set on any particular mechanics for my game. Hopefully writing this stuff down will help me sort my thoughts and find something that I want to use. Anyway, until next time.

Where to begin...

     Where does one begin when creating a miniature game? Is it the setting? The mechanics of the game? Or is it pulling out a block of modelling putty and sculpting out some sweet miniatures? I've been unable to post in this blog for almost a year simply because I don't know where to begin.

     Writing is not a strong point of mine. I've been trying to write since the start of this blog (Circa Sept 2012) and it's been a slow going process. I never thought it would be so challenging to just write some stories. I keep hitting road blocks with fairly simple things like explaining currency or government, common cultural quirks and a ton of other things we take for granted. So I feel myself getting side-tracked or too caught up in trying to explain everything in my "fantasy world" that it takes away from the story at hand.

     When I work on game mechanics, many different possibilities come to mind. I want something good but not a rip off of other games. The problem with that is; there are a few very good game mechanics out there for miniature games and I feel they are all taken already. I know it sounds like doom and gloom. And I will come up with something unique eventually, it's just hard to come up with when so many good mechanics already exist.

     Finally the sculpting. Every good miniature game out there has their own line of miniatures. And for the most part, they are pretty sweet miniatures. If they weren't we wouldn't buy them and we probably wouldn't play their games. I am bad at sculpting. So bad that I don't think I'll ever be good at it. Is it a learned skill? Or something that you either have or you don't? Hopefully it's not the later and I will develop some skills later on.

     So now you must be scratching your head thinking; you can't write, you can't come up with unique mechanics and you can't sculpt miniatures. What the hell are you doing trying to make a miniature game? Right? Well... I love miniature games. I have a ton of ideas that I would love to implement into a game. I welcome the challenge ahead, even if I have to eventually hire someone to sculpt and write for me. Maybe I'll write something good, maybe my idea of a game is what people have been searching for, and maybe not. We will see, though it may take time, a lot of time...