Warcards rant, as extended.

[James Ruhland]

I can never keep out of a good rant, as we all know. :)~
>
> I don't like the card system for birthright battles. There. I said it.
I feel
> better already.
>
I totally and without reservation agree with you completely.
>
> I think it's a stupid, half-assed nod to the popularity of card games
that have
> inexplicably sprung onto the RPG scene in recent years. As a result we
are
> stuck with a simplistic method to determine large scale conflicts that is
about
> as sophisticated as a game of Go Fish.
>
Again, I absolutely agree. War Card units are, as they stand, bland,
faceless, and except for a few examples (mostly awensheigs and stuff like
Iron Guard), unchanging from realm to realm.
The results are that most battles are mere slugfests/contests of
attrition. This is furthermore encouraged by the highly restricted nature
of the "battlefield". IMO, it doesn't allow enough room for mobility/war of
manuver. This means that units like Khinasi Light Cavalry aren't as
effective as they would "realistically" be, because the usual practice for
such units is to avoid melee, manuvering around, falling back as the enemy
adances (including "retreating" all day long if you have to, like the Turks
and Manzikurt; who 'retreated' throughout the day but won the fight
handily). But if you "retreat" your units, you loose the battle in the War
Card system.
Also, I have to admit that if I had my choice, I'd prefer something akin
to the War Machine rules from D&D. Yes, no nice little counters. No colored
war cards. But you get to design (and pay for) your own army, to suit your
own vision of what you'd like your army to be like. Now, there are problems
with this method, too (especially the problem that once you "figure out"
the system, creating indestrictable, unconquerable armies is only a matter
of crunching the numbers just so.)
>
> Battle cards. Back in the days when I started playing RPGs you couldn't
get
> dice. Oh, you could snag six-siders from the family Monopoly game, but
anything
> other than the traditional cubes were as elusive as a unicorn. There
were like
> two stores in Southern California that sold the things and they were far
outside
> the reasonable travel radius of my Schwinn. Instead we had chits.
>
Oh, god. . .not chits. 1st "dice" I ever used were chits, too. Luckily,
Pegasus Games (Madison Wis.) was in business almost right from the
begining, and getting real dice wasn't hard. Of course, the 1st dice I
bought were crappy. But I soon got good dice.

>
> Mom would reclaim her cups and the whole set would get washed down the
drain
> with the rest of the dishes like Charybdis sucking down Argonauts.
>
*G*

> My point is that drawing Battle Cards is no different than using chits.
I mean,
> I've got dice RIGHT THERE ON THE TABLE, man! Just gimme a chart and a
> twenty-sider. Keep the lousy card stock (that aren't even glossy, thank
you
> very much) cards.
>
Well, since Next Generation Birthright, or Birthright: the New Era is going
to be a hardbacked book, hopefully they will rectifiy/rationalize this
horrible situation. Of course, now that good old TSR is the Vassal of a
CCGC ("Collectable Card Game Company"), I have my doubts. . .
But then again, the people who run WoC are also venerable gamers, so
perhaps they will Do the Right Thing.

> Plus, I really don't like the idea of using cards in a pen & paper game.
> Suddenly we have to stop one method of play and start a card game? What
if the
> NBA suddenly required players to stop and play out a couple of hands of
> Blackjack to determine the winner?
>
Or what if, god forbid, at the end of a Soccer (er, "Football" for you
ferigners) game, if the game was tied at the end of regulation play, they
all the sudden changed rules, and to "settle" the tie people just shot free
kicks rather than goingto Overtime PLAYING THE DAMNED GAME like it was
meant to be played??? I mean, if they did it that way, then weak febble
teams with no offence to speak of might deliberately play for a tie,
knowing that if they can somehow make it, then the results will be almost
as if you flipped a coin to determine the outcome. May as well just do that
at the begining and save everyone 90 min. of their lives if you are going
to have a rule like that. Good thing they don't. Oh, wait. . .that's what
they do do. Nevermind.
Anyhow, the Card system IMO is kind of like that. You can spend all the
time you want coming up with a nice, creative battle plan, but when it
comes right down to it you're presented with a set piece battlefield, and
units of uniform strength, and it's all a matter of a slugfest. Either you
have more units and spellcasters available, and thus win through attrition,
or you have less, and thus loose through attrition, or you have the same
amount and the results are a coin flip. Tactics play some factor, but are
comparatively negligable.
>
> So anyway, I avoid using the card system as much as possible. I like
them only
> as a reference. It makes more sense to me to modify the rules to
accompany
> dice.
>
At one point I almost got to liking the card system just fine. Or at least
it was ok. But I donno. . .I guess it's the battlefield I mainly don't
like. And I guess in that respect I have a problem with lots of wargames.
But it seems to me the Battlecard Battlefield is among the most restrictive
possible battlefields. It just doesn't allow a lot of room for manuver. Ok,
there are some "tricks" you can use, but only some, and once everyone you
play with figures thouse out, then it's like I said: not a matter of
tactics or better generalship anymore, but just pure attrition.
Anyhow, back to making plans to send 200 or so units against someone
else's 200 or so units and hoping that the flip of the coin is in my favor
(I guess in my character's case, that would be tails. Or heads? whatever.)

[Gary V. Foss]

James Ruhland wrote:

> I can never keep out of a good rant, as we all know. :)~
> >
> > I don't like the card system for birthright battles. There. I said it. I feel
>
> > better already.
> >
> I totally and without reservation agree with you completely.
> >
> > I think it's a stupid, half-assed nod to the popularity of card games that have
> > inexplicably sprung onto the RPG scene in recent years. As a result we are
> > stuck with a simplistic method to determine large scale conflicts that is about
> > as sophisticated as a game of Go Fish.
> >
> Again, I absolutely agree. War Card units are, as they stand, bland,
> faceless, and except for a few examples (mostly awensheigs and stuff like
> Iron Guard), unchanging from realm to realm.
> The results are that most battles are mere slugfests/contests of
> attrition. This is furthermore encouraged by the highly restricted nature
> of the "battlefield". IMO, it doesn't allow enough room for mobility/war of
> manuver. This means that units like Khinasi Light Cavalry aren't as
> effective as they would "realistically" be, because the usual practice for
> such units is to avoid melee, manuvering around, falling back as the enemy
> adances (including "retreating" all day long if you have to, like the Turks
> and Manzikurt; who 'retreated' throughout the day but won the fight
> handily). But if you "retreat" your units, you loose the battle in the War
> Card system.

Ugh! You're right. I forgot to mention the feeble battlemap. I forgot because I
only used the thing once before I decided it was basically pointless and just had
players throw their cards out on the table.

> Oh, god. . .not chits. 1st "dice" I ever used were chits, too. Luckily,
> Pegasus Games (Madison Wis.) was in business almost right from the
> begining, and getting real dice wasn't hard. Of course, the 1st dice I
> bought were crappy. But I soon got good dice.

Yeah, remember those really cruddy plastic dice that you'd roll twenty times and the
edges would wear off? Pretty soon they were nearly as round as a ball bearing and
you'd have to watch the thing pinball around the table for a full minute before it
finally rolled to a stop in the crack of the table leading to a massive argument
between the DM and the player on whether that counted. Ah, the good old days....

> Well, since Next Generation Birthright, or Birthright: the New Era is going
> to be a hardbacked book, hopefully they will rectifiy/rationalize this
> horrible situation. Of course, now that good old TSR is the Vassal of a
> CCGC ("Collectable Card Game Company"), I have my doubts. . .
> But then again, the people who run WoC are also venerable gamers, so
> perhaps they will Do the Right Thing.

Hear our pleas, oh gods of the gaming industry! We beseech thee! Throw down this
infantile card game influence for surely it is the work of the Devil, or Baatezu, or
whatever they're called in this post Moral Majority climate....

- -Gary

[James Ruhland]

>
> Yeah, remember those really cruddy plastic dice that you'd roll twenty
times and the
> edges would wear off? Pretty soon they were nearly as round as a ball
bearing and
> you'd have to watch the thing pinball around the table for a full minute
before it
> finally rolled to a stop in the crack of the table leading to a massive
argument
> between the DM and the player on whether that counted. Ah, the good old
days....
>
LOL; yep, thouse were the exact dice I was talking about.
Then there were the ones that the dies didn't cast very well, and the
points didn't exactly meet, so they'd never roll "true". For some reason
these dice were indistructable, and the points never wore out, but they'd
have a tendancy to roll disproportionate results. I.E. "my lucky 20 sider"

I think I still have that somewhere. . . .
>
> Hear our pleas, oh gods of the gaming industry! We beseech thee! Throw
down this
> infantile card game influence for surely it is the work of the Devil, or
Baatezu, or
> whatever they're called in this post Moral Majority climate....
>
I believe that he is called "Barney" nowdays.

[Ryan B. Caveney]

> > I don't like the card system for birthright battles. There. I said it.
> > I feel better already.
> >
> I totally and without reservation agree with you completely.

Me too! Me too! As you say, we've got the dice. Let's use 'em!

> The results are that most battles are mere slugfests/contests of
> attrition. This is furthermore encouraged by the highly restricted nature
> of the "battlefield". IMO, it doesn't allow enough room for mobility/war of

Gods, yes! Does anybody see any reason not to stack your entire
army in one space under the existing system? More seriously, an army ten
times the size of its opponent should *not* be able to concentrate all its
firepower against the smaller foe all at once!

> Also, I have to admit that if I had my choice, I'd prefer
> something akin to the War Machine rules from D&D. Yes, no nice little

My problem with War Machine was that the casualties just didn't
scale right: an army that outnumbers its opponent 100-to-1 can take 20%
losses in winning just as easily as one that only is ten times the size of
its foe. (Yeah, it's an extreme example.) But I really like taking
training time and previous results against the same enemy into account.
I'm with Craig: go with Battlesystem. Of course, it needs to be
modified slightly to deal with battles having dozens of mobile units per
side. The system I'm working out mixes Battlesystem with the one part of
War Cards I actually like (2-4 hits per unit rather than 12-20), and a
little bit of a wargame called Ancients II (by GMT? I forget...):
No stacking, hex scale such that war card movement rates mostly double
(sword-armed infantry should go twice as fast as pikes!), better match of
to-hit vs. AC...
To-hit vs. AC. Why does the undead legion have defense 7?? If
it's "mostly skeletons and zombies", its AC is 7-8, so it should be really
easy to hit. The only explanation I can see is that most hits represent
loss of disorganization and morale rather than physical casualties: undead
do not feel these problems. But then you should just triple the number of
hits the unit can take, and drop its defense to 2 or 3.
One thing that might well work as a replacement is the official BR
*skirmish* rules, except at ten times the scale. That preserves AD&D
combat essentially unchanged...

- --Ryan

[DKEvermore]

In a message dated 98-05-25 19:09:01 EDT, you write:

> This means that units like Khinasi Light Cavalry aren't as
> effective as they would "realistically" be, because the usual practice for
> such units is to avoid melee, manuvering around, falling back as the enemy
> adances (including "retreating" all day long if you have to, like the Turks
> and Manzikurt; who 'retreated' throughout the day but won the fight
> handily). But if you "retreat" your units, you loose the battle in the War
> Card system.
I'm not sure this is as strong an example as you might have intended.

Remember that mounted units need not all foot soldiers to engage them, even in
the same square. Also, voluntarily falling back does no harm to a unit.

I get your point about terrain, though. Where sides are roughly equal,
terrain and generalship in using it should be more decisive. I, too, wish
there was something more that could be done with it...

More terrain cards? Different shapes of battlefield area?

- -DKE

[DKEvermore]

In a message dated 98-05-26 00:35:14 EDT, you write:

> Gods, yes! Does anybody see any reason not to stack your entire
> army in one space under the existing system? More seriously, an army ten
> times the size of its opponent should *not* be able to concentrate all its
> firepower against the smaller foe all at once!
>
I do. A smart general, seeing an opponent do that would spread his army out
and wait. No fighting happens, dice are rolled, someone is forced out of a
square. The poor tactician who had all his stuff in one spot, by the odds, is
forced off the field and looses the battle, and might even get cut up by
cavalry while they are on the retreat. Exception: Castle. But then it's
appropriate for them all to be in there...

- -DKE

[James Ruhland]

>
> Remember that mounted units need not all foot soldiers to engage them,
even in
> the same square. Also, voluntarily falling back does no harm to a unit.
>
I know that; but what I was mainly remarking on is the limited size of the
"battle area". Say you advance your light cavalry and start shooting arrows
into the enemy line. They don't like that, so they advance to melee with
you.
You have more manuverability and you fall back. You're now in the back row
of your battle line, and start filling the enemy with arrows again. So they
move forward, and you fall back again.
You're now in the reserves and you have just "lost" the battle.
Now, admitedly, instead of going "backwards" you can go sideways to avoid
melee, at least in theory. But if the enemy has a real battle line (rather
than using the "I'll just put everything in one square and roll over the
enemy like Napoleon at Wagram" tactic), this won't really work.
And there is no reall functional "flank" in this battlefield.

>
> More terrain cards? Different shapes of battlefield area?
>
A bigger, or at least more flexable battle area. More terrain cards would
be nice (but 3x5s can be mocked up if you don't mind ugly ad-hoc cards).

[David Sean Brown]

> To-hit vs. AC. Why does the undead legion have defense 7?? If
> it's "mostly skeletons and zombies", its AC is 7-8, so it should be really
> easy to hit. The only explanation I can see is that most hits represent
> loss of disorganization and morale rather than physical casualties: undead
> do not feel these problems. But then you should just triple the number of
> hits the unit can take, and drop its defense to 2 or 3.

Don't forget that skeletons only take 1/2 damage from edgend weapons and 1
point from piercing...this could be reflected in the high defence rating..

Sean

[DKEvermore]

In a message dated 98-05-26 12:25:44 EDT, you write:

> You're now in the reserves and you have just "lost" the battle.
> Now, admitedly, instead of going "backwards" you can go sideways to avoid
> melee, at least in theory. But if the enemy has a real battle line (rather
> than using the "I'll just put everything in one square and roll over the
> enemy like Napoleon at Wagram" tactic), this won't really work.
>
True, but your fantasy army could not likely fall back continuously for long.
Doing so would eventually leave your baggage train exposed and once that is
lost, your troops are unlikely to want to carry on the fight with no food or
supplies of arrows, etc.

Perhaps a mobile battlefield (similar to that used in the naval combat) but
with a marker for the baggage or reserve area. This will limit how far one
can really fallback before the battle is lost.

- -DKE