Missions in Wrath of the Autarch

Under advice from people smarter than I, I have been playing through the longer term strategy in Wrath of the Autarch, trying to get it humming along.  This takes the form of having a player handle the seasonal details of the Stronghold (building developments, rolling for threats), and then abstracting out the actual missions.  For lack of any better resolution system, I just give a ballpark result, based on what I think would (or should) happen.

Because the player running the Autarch is trying to defeat the players running the Stronghold, it is important for the players running the Stronghold to have some understanding of what options are available and why they would take them.  Unfortunately, the text at this point isn't all that helpful - so this article is the first of a few which summarizes the strategies present in the game.  Hopefully this will serve to crystallize my own understanding of the design, but it will also help players who are going through the strategy game understand their options.

The building blocks of the campaign are missions.  Each season, a few heroes from the Stronghold may undertake one such mission.  Choosing missions carefully is the backbone of any strategy.  Winning!

• Conquest - Conquest missions allow the Stronghold to acquire a neutral region, from a list of available neutral regions.  Only one neutral region may be acquired each year (although the Cartography development grants two regions a year).
• Why do it? Because regions are the lifeblood for resources, and resources are used for many different things.  Almost any strategy is going to require a couple neutral regions.
• Mini-game - All mini-games are used, although most of the time Skirmish is necessary.
• Trade - Set-up a trade deal with one of the five neutral factions.
• Why do it? Successful trade improves disposition with the faction, and a high enough disposition means the faction becomes your ally.  Furthermore, trade helps build developments quicker (the type of development depends on the type of faction), as well as giving access to certain quests for artifacts.
• Mini-game - Diplomacy.
• Espionage - Steal secrets about a development from a faction.
• Why do it? Makes building a particular development much easier.  In a few cases, developments provide a different benefit than build points (such as leverage against the faction in an upcoming Trade, or military advantages).
• Mini-game - Infiltration
• Sabotage - Destroy a development within a faction.
• Why do it? The biggest benefit is usually a stability hit for the target faction.  If stability drops enough, the faction is no longer around - in the case of the Autarch, that's the victory condition!  In addition, a few developments provide other benefits, like neutralizing military advantages.
• Mini-game - Infiltration
• Military - Attack a region that a faction controls.
• Why do it? To steal the resources a faction has, and lower their stability and population in the process.  To do this mission, the Stronghold really needs to be committed to a solid Military strategy, supplemented by many developments.
• Mini-game - Warfare
• Assassination - Take out the leader of an opposing faction.
• Why do it? The stability of the target faction will most likely drop (sometimes by a lot if it's an influential leader).  Furthermore, getting rid of leaders can render a faction weak in a particular area (such as killing a military leader).
• Mini-game - Infiltration
• Quest - Gain a powerful artifact.
• Why do it?  It's hard to gain access to quests, since it requires an allied faction.  Once one becomes available, it's usually worthwhile to grab it, since it can be the capstone of a particular long term strategy.
• Mini-game - All mini-games, although Skirmish is mainly used.
• Threats - Threats are all the bad things that happen in regions, with factions, and from the Autarch.

Fortex+ (Looking Deeper into Alternative Fate Dice Distributions)

After hearing some gripes from players in my WotA group about Fate dice, I've been interested in exploring the pros and cons of various alternatives.  I'm particularly interested in the following features:

• No re-rolls.  This is in an attempt to place all the tension at the moment of the roll itself, rather than a negotiation afterward.  I'm also not a huge fan of the re-roll option in Fate - it's sort of another hoop to jump through.
• Player driven compels.  One thing I like about Cortex+ is the simplicity of player driven compels, where there is a mechanism for players to generate their own currency (fate points, plot points, etc).  I'm not against GM-driven compels, but I *really* like a mechanism for players to bring in currency without the GM's guidance.  The way I handled that in WotA was just to let players take a Fate point anytime they could narrate how an aspect they had caused problems on a failed roll.

Anyway, I was interested in exploring the d6 - d6 distribution for Fate, and then extending that to rolling a set of dice, taking the highest rolled, along with rolling a set of dice, and subtracting the lowest rolled.

• Start with d6 - d6.
• Spend a Fate point to:
• Step up a die in the first pool, or add a new d6 to the pool.  For instance, with two fate points, you could roll d10 - d6 (incrementing d6 to d8, then to d10).  Or you could roll 3d6 (taking the highest) - d6.
• Add a d6 to the second pool, taking the lowest of the results.  So, with two fate points, you could roll 2d6 (taking the highest) - 2d6 (taking the lowest).
• Rolling d4 - d6 counts as a compel, granting a Fate point.  Of course, an aspect is needed for this, and it must make narrative sense.

This system does fulfill the no re-rolls and player driven compels features.  However, it also compromises much of the player agency that Fate provides.  Anyway, it was interesting to explore the probabilities of such a system.

The first metric to look at is expected value.  For expected value, the best way to use Fate points is just to bump the first dice up.  Adding extra dice doesn't help expected value as much.  In the last entries below, the parentheses indicate rolling a set of dice and taking the highest (if before the subtraction) or the lowest (if after).  As can be seen from expected values, a Fate point in this system is worth much less than in regular Fate (it's roughly +1 instead of +2).

• d6 - d6 : 0
• d8 - d6: +1
• d10 - d6: +2
• d12 - d6: +3.0
• d12 - (d6, d6): +3.97
• (d6, d12) - (d6, d6): +4.46

That said, expected value is only one way to look at probability.  It doesn't take into account the distribution of results.  For that, rolling a set of dice and taking the highest naturally makes the lowest results even less likely, while simultaneously making the highest results less likely (or impossible).  For instance, the graph at right shows cumulative probability density functions for when three Fate points are available.  In that case, the first dice can be bumped up three times from a d6 to a d12, or two extra dice could be added to the first pool (taking the highest) and one to the last pool (taking the lowest).  Thus, if you really need to get above a two, more than you care about rolling really high, it's better to go the pool route.  Because rolling a -5, -4, or -3 is very unlikely.

So, there are some real trade-offs in this approach, and risk can be involved.  Interestingly, if the pools are removed and traditional Fate re-rolls are used with the stepped up dice (d8 - d6, etc), it's worth a re-roll if the expected value or less is rolled.  So, if a +2 is rolled on d10 - d6, it merits a re-roll.  This is another possibility that could be interesting: allow re-rolls, but the first dice must be stepped up and locked down before any re-rolls take place.

Anyway, after thinking about how this might work in WotA, I think I'm going to stick with the standard Fate model.  However, I am considering using d6 - d6 for Fate rolls and allowing certain Stronghold developments to bump up the first dice.  There's something very visceral about rolling d12 - d6 and nailing a +11.  But I would keep Fate points the same (add +2 or allow a re-roll).

WotA Playtesting During Origins

So, I got in a number of playtests of Wrath of the Autarch during Origins.  Weirdly, they were all of the Infiltration mini-game, probably because it has an element of finality to it that the other mini-games don't.

Anyway, I don't have any huge revelations or overhauls (probably a good thing), but I did think of some minor changes both during play and afterward.

• Use spatial maps for Infiltration.  This isn't required, but it does make it fun.  The only issue is that the default mode is that any zone can be reached from any zone, and that's not always true when you bring in a map.  Have to think if that will make it too hard.
• For casting spells in the narrative scene, the first mana spent should just fuel the spell (and not also act as a fate point).  It's good enough to use Spellcraft for a power.
• Use compels to add new obstacles related to the players aspects.  I did this a lot to great effect - need to make sure it's spelled out clearly as an option.
• Limit the narrative phase to three rounds, instead of four.  Four was a little too long, and that needs to be as quick as possible.  Luck could really sham the players occasionally, but as it stands now I think it's a little too easy.
• Need to make sure there are a good variety of outcomes for Infiltration missions on the strategic game, particularly for things like assassination.  I'm guessing assassination could already be covered as just a way to sabotage certain developments, but this needs to be spelled out.

Other thoughts, outside of that, revolved mostly around trade missions and the overall strategic game.  I've simplified trade a little, but I may need to go further.

I have some other thoughts on what I'm going to do with the document going forward, but I'll save those.  For this week, I think I'll add in those tweaks, and maybe work to completely finish the Autarch chapter.  That will give me a good template for all the other factions.

Fate and Mass Battles

So, yesterday was the first real playtest of the Warfare mini-game in Wrath of the Autarch.  It went about how all the other mini-games went when I first played them: a mixed bag.  In this mission, the players mustered their (pretty crappy) troops to withstand an attack from a limited strength Autarch force.

I went for a more Diaspora-like model of platoon combat as my basis, rather than something like the abstract model that Legends of Anglerre has.  My desire was to fight out units moving around zones, rather than having whole armies roll against each other.  There are many ways to do it, but that level of detail fits better with the rest of the missions already in place.

The narrative phase went well - but no rules have changed there for quite some time.  There were some cool scenes involving leaders from Bavin's Hollow (the Stronghold the players have created) pleading with some local farmers to get out of the path of the oncoming Imperial army.  I compelled one of the players to play to her character's nature and contradict what the other heroes were trying to do.

The Warfare mini-game, though, was a little slow and involved.  I think the mustering the troops went fine (that was pretty easy), and I had drawn out the zone map ahead of time.  But, there were a few issues that I've thought about this evening, and hopefully can resolve before the next playtest of this mini-game.

• The map was too big.  I had too many zones on the map, it was about 8 X 6 (in zones).  Of course, zones aren't grids, but that's still roughly how it was shaped.  That was too many zones.  The units moved too slow, and there was too much down time before it really clashed.  You need more zones than Skirmish (which only has four or five or so), but that was too many.
• A few of the players felt like their heroes didn't have enough options.  In particular, they wanted their bad-ass fighter heroes to be able to do bad-ass fighty stuff.  As it stood now - leaders (commanders of units), could Create an Advantage (makes aspects), Overcome Obstacles (remove them - or get around various static obstacles), or redeploy units under their command.
• Looking back, we weren't creative enough in the creation of aspects.  For instance, it's feasible a warrior could create an aspect which would demoralize an opposing unit simply by wading in and attacking.
• The players were interested in having the ability to attack a leader of the opposing force.  I'm not against this - so I'll probably put it in the rules.
• Too much Create an Advantage can slow things down.  This is sort of a byproduct of the previous issue.  The other mini-games have more options for the characters.  Most of them have a choice of Attack/Create an Advantage/Overcome Obstacle.  Because attack was gone (at least as it pertains to leaders) - that made it drag.
• I'm not sold on rolling for movement.  In Diaspora, each platoon rolls for movement.  In Fate as well, during Conflicts.  For this mini-game, though, it didn't seem to matter much.  It seems like a roll means you can spend Fate points.  But it felt like a lot of rolling for not that much benefit.  I'm thinking of just saying a leader and commanded units can move some base amount - depending on the slowest unit they command.

Those were the main issues.  That battle of itself, which I thought was going to be *very* lopsided, was closer than I anticipated.  The heroes, although they just had poorly trained militia on their side, also had some pretty serious spell power (it's one of their main focuses), and that helped tremendously.

So, it was interesting to see in action, but I have some work to do to make it come together a little better.

Storygames and Metagaming

So, this semi-rant can safely be filed under pedantry.  I've read a few people recently mention they don't like RPGs with lots of metagame decisions, then they mention games like Fiasco.  I've seen this enough that it seems common, but it doesn't really jive with my understanding of the term.

A metagame decision, as I understand it, are the concerns outside the structure of the rules.  An example consisting of something like watching the clock during your D&D game, knowing that the GM has to wrap up the scenario soon, so it's a good idea to blow all your cool spells now.  Or taking it easy on whoever brought the beer that night.

However, talking about scene currency in Fiasco isn't a metagame decision, since it's part of the rules structure.  I guess a metagame decision might be avoiding certain types of scenes based on the comfort level of the players, or something to that effect.

Anyway, this falls back to probably a larger issue in that communication about RPGs is a messy thing.  I guess communication is itself messy, so it's not surprise we can't talk about RPGs very well.  But I think gamers have a variety of terms we love to use, but rarely agree on: crunchy, fluffy, gamist, story game, indie game, simulationist, metagame, simple, complex, railroad, sandbox, old school, new school, munchkin, power gamer, etc.  If nothing else, it provides for conversation.

WotA Playtest Packets

With summer con season approaching I've been thinking about coming up with some different playtest packets for WotA.  Since WotA is a kingdom building game, it's a little harder to come up with a way to showcase how it works, but I think trying to come up with a "use case" for each of the mini-games is a good way to go.

The mini-games are: Skirmish, Infiltration, Diplomacy, and Warfare.  The Infiltration and Diplomacy mini-games are probably where I'll focus first.  The Skirmish mini-game is basically the Fate Core conflict system, so it's not very unique, and Warfare is a little trickier to demo, since there's more overhead in terms of an area to lay out different counters for units and such.

I think it would be nice to come up with backstories for different Strongholds, focused on different sorts of activities.  That way, I can have playtests which are varied both mechanically, and thematically, showing off the different possibilities in the game.  It will also probably help me in design, since I can see how valid the various strategies are.  I would group a set of five pre-generated characters with a sheet for the stronghold, and one mission.

For diplomacy, probably a trade mission is the best way to go.  Maybe a trade mission to Lily Manor in year two or three, with the goal of getting assistance setting up various methods of tracking commerce and trade, with the hope of increasing soft power.  This could feature diplomatic maneuverings and highlight how the trade system works.  It's helpful to have a cultural theme for the Stronghold - maybe a sort of fantasy Renaissance Italy?

With Infiltration, I already have quite a few options fleshed out (courtesy of what my home group has been doing).  One that sounds good is a mission to help Burgan Vale (they're sort of the hippie mage faction), that are being attacked by the Autarch via a bizarre mana draining device.  This would fit a group that was going a more magic/stealth route.  I've wanted to base one Stronghold after a fantasy Asian (maybe Chinese?) theme, and maybe this would be a good fit.  This Stronghold would also probably be a mid-game society (year two or maybe three).

For Skirmish, I can probably just use the characters already in the book and one of the initial Conquest missions, probably to take Sightrock - which seems to be a de facto opening season move.  I'm also not really as interested in playing Skirmish during playtests, not because I don't like it, but because it already works fine, and I don't see it changing.

I'll probably punt on Warfare for now, but I think that would be suited to a late game Stronghold, with a strong military, attacking the Autarch.  But I'll have my hands full just creating characters and sample Strongholds for the Infiltration and Skirmish cases, so I doubt I'll get to Warfare, but ideally, I would like to have one strong playtest ready for all four types of mini-games.

Diplomacy in Wrath of the Autarch

I'm still thinking of ways to make the diplomacy mini-game in WotA a little more flexible.  Currently, what I have involves the players taking turns trying to gain support from leaders of an opposing group, while under time pressure in the form of a hard limit on the number of turns.  The more outlandish the request, the more support is needed from the leaders.  This is monitored by a support track that each leader is placed on.

The WotA diplomacy mini-game has been pretty fun, but it has a number of tricky elements.  One is that it's pretty rigid, since it involves only opposing leaders with whom you are trying to gain support.  I think that element will always be there - diplomacy is about coming together and gaining support.  However, there are occasionally other people involved (third party antagonists), who serve mainly to gum up the works and create obstacles.

The other element that is tricky is balancing the mini-game for different numbers of players.  As it stands, if there are more leaders than players, they can use the Create an Advantage action to make it very difficult for the players to succeed.  I accommodated this by adding extra turns if there are fewer players, but they still can get overwhelmed pretty easily.

There are other options out there - for instance, Fate Core's conflict rules can handle social conflict.  I'm not as fond of using the conflict mechanics, because it just feels like "fighting with words", and I would prefer a different aesthetic.  What I have does feel a little more like diplomacy, since there are issues raised and addressed, and overall support levels calculated.  I also feel like it's close to being right, so I may do some more fiddling before looking at larger overhauls.

Really, the "third party antagonist" issue and the "scaling for players" issue may be closely related.  It might need to be solved by having a limited pool of actions for the GM rather than one action for each character the GM controls.  If the number of actions was based on the number of players, that might scale it pretty well, while also giving flexibility to having different sorts of opposing characters.

All the players could take their turns, then the GM gets to activate one character for each player - either leaders raising issues and debating or a malevolent third party intent on obstructing the character's intentions. Or, actions could be taken in order of the Society skill as they are now, but the GM would still only get some number of characters based on the number of players.

So, setup would consist of selecting opposing leaders as well as interested characters from third parties (like the Autarch).  Each leader would still be placed on a separate track, and if their support is gained, some amount of Influence is added to the total support.  Depending on the mission, the amount of total support gained after the number of turns has elapsed determines success or failure.  The key thing about diplomacy is that it's less about success or failure than about building relationships and setting up potential future problems.