The Renegade Tournament System: Designer's notes
A thread popped up on the Imtel facebook group a couple of weeks ago and one of the points of contention was an idea that Antares as a "young" game has a fairly quiet and fragmented tournament scene with no official pack or scenario support. As part of that, there was a bit of a motivator to "go fix it".
As a player of other competitive games, I felt I knew enough about what I'd personally like to see the game do in a competitive sense so I set about writing a pack up and devising some missions to choose from.
I've broken this post down into two bits: designer notes and then the pack itself. Please read through everything and leave comments below to start a discussion or head to the Imtel group on facebook.
Disclaimer:
Whilst I will claim this is an original work, I've borrowed heavily from elsewhere and those themes will be obvious to players of other systems. I firmly believe that imitation is flattery and it is out of love for those systems that I've borrowed from, because they do what they do well and this is not a lazy copy paste.
Objectives
I wanted to make a system for tournaments that:
-Runs quickly
-Is clear and concise in wording
-Focuses on objectives and generalship over kills
-Uses a scoring system that is mutually exclusive (ie both players cannot score highly)
-Uses a system where each player has slightly different objectives with unknown element
-Has a variety of missions that feel right for the setting
-Has missions that favour different styles of play
-Focus on developing a "tools for the mission" list style rather than "take all comers"
Decisions made
Runs quickly:
-Limit turns to 5 or when broken
this to me is the biggy. If you go crazy in the early turns and break your opponent by using a skew list, you'll break him before completing your objectives and limit the objective points you can gain, hurting your overall tournament standing at the end of the day. The incentive is to "play the mission" rather than devolve into bloodlust (though killing enemy units is still a very useful tool)
-Missions require movement
initial turns can resolve quickly due to most orders needing to be spent on movement related orders like run/sprint/advance to cover the ground
-Avoid gamer fatigue
3 rounds in a day should be doable with this system. Enough games that people get a full day's entertainment, but without rushing or feeling too drained at the end of it and keeps it timely for TO/timings etc
Scoring system:
The scoring system can be used in two ways, 1 favours consistently achieving mission objectives well and will tend to place players with higher scoring draws (eg 5-5) and minor losses (eg 4-6) higher in the order where the other method will place players who score more lower objective point wins (eg 2-1) higher in the order. As such, I've left the decision to the TO as to which one they want to run with the caveat that larger events will need the extra layer of stratification that the event point mechanic gives. Event points obviously favour consistent victories (regardless of mission objectives completed) but mean that at 12 player events, placings are done on number/margin of victories over day->total mission points accrued-> total surviving army points and you're less likely to get major swings in positions attained based on the loss of a very cheap unit in one round for example.
Focuses on generalship over kills:
I like the idea of a general being briefed on his mission objectives prior to an engagement, picking the forces best able to achieve those and then focussing on those above just all out war. Generals want to achieve their aims with minimal casualties and that is what I wanted to explore with these really. It changes the mindset from list building right through to the dice draws. You should be thinking first and foremost of the mission objectives rather than tabling your opponent. You should both be able to play an interesting game where you are in direct competition with one another rather than executing or receiving a turn 2 tabling (I hope!!)
Unknown element:
Secondary objectives rolled at random pre-game with a fallback "default option"
This adds an element of in-game bluff as well as a risk/reward element to list building.
These will no doubt be the part that really needs some in-depth playtesting by the community at large as certain forces will inherently be better at some than others and to be honest, I'm ok with that. Every force should have strengths and weaknesses and each secondary objective has a counterplay and some element of risk inherent to it.
Missions that feel right:
some games i've played have some very odd mission design, often feeling largely arbitrary events orchestrated just for a reason to get you to fight. In the blurb and the terrain suggestions of my pack, I've tried to set a story in the mission that is a balanced encounter but should also have a good reason for the encounter to happen in the first place.
The biggest problem I can see is that I've been quite specific with terrain recommendations and that is likely to be a problem for larger events due to amounts required. As we're not at the point of having regular events with 60+ players, I'm hoping that this won't be a problem *yet* but acknowledge that this could be a problem in places and have set these out as guidelines only.
"Tools for the mission" vs "Take all comers"
I guess this could be contentious but I hate TAC list building in Antares because each force plays so differently and It doesn't really feel right for what I am trying to achieve with the missions. The forces a general would want for besieging a facility would be very different to a rapid supply raid and I wanted players to be able to bring lists that cover off against potential "skew" lists/factions as well (eg list A= light infantry force but you're now opposing a Ghar player. Player then uses list B with a tank and heavier troops for that game but now has less inherent speed for doing main objectives) and it can give flexibility to deal with overly dense/sparse table set ups that tend to occur where a TO's terrain has been too liberal or not enough was owned for the number of tables in use on the day etc.
Ok, on to the pack itself. Please note that this is a beta, all input is welcomed and I want this to be a resource that is useful for players and TOs alike, ultimately something that gets used and contributes back to the game I enjoy and the community as a whole.
The V1 beta pack can be found here:V1 (beta) pack
As a player of other competitive games, I felt I knew enough about what I'd personally like to see the game do in a competitive sense so I set about writing a pack up and devising some missions to choose from.
I've broken this post down into two bits: designer notes and then the pack itself. Please read through everything and leave comments below to start a discussion or head to the Imtel group on facebook.
Disclaimer:
Whilst I will claim this is an original work, I've borrowed heavily from elsewhere and those themes will be obvious to players of other systems. I firmly believe that imitation is flattery and it is out of love for those systems that I've borrowed from, because they do what they do well and this is not a lazy copy paste.
Objectives
I wanted to make a system for tournaments that:
-Runs quickly
-Is clear and concise in wording
-Focuses on objectives and generalship over kills
-Uses a scoring system that is mutually exclusive (ie both players cannot score highly)
-Uses a system where each player has slightly different objectives with unknown element
-Has a variety of missions that feel right for the setting
-Has missions that favour different styles of play
-Focus on developing a "tools for the mission" list style rather than "take all comers"
Decisions made
Runs quickly:
-Limit turns to 5 or when broken
this to me is the biggy. If you go crazy in the early turns and break your opponent by using a skew list, you'll break him before completing your objectives and limit the objective points you can gain, hurting your overall tournament standing at the end of the day. The incentive is to "play the mission" rather than devolve into bloodlust (though killing enemy units is still a very useful tool)
-Missions require movement
initial turns can resolve quickly due to most orders needing to be spent on movement related orders like run/sprint/advance to cover the ground
-Avoid gamer fatigue
3 rounds in a day should be doable with this system. Enough games that people get a full day's entertainment, but without rushing or feeling too drained at the end of it and keeps it timely for TO/timings etc
Scoring system:
The scoring system can be used in two ways, 1 favours consistently achieving mission objectives well and will tend to place players with higher scoring draws (eg 5-5) and minor losses (eg 4-6) higher in the order where the other method will place players who score more lower objective point wins (eg 2-1) higher in the order. As such, I've left the decision to the TO as to which one they want to run with the caveat that larger events will need the extra layer of stratification that the event point mechanic gives. Event points obviously favour consistent victories (regardless of mission objectives completed) but mean that at 12 player events, placings are done on number/margin of victories over day->total mission points accrued-> total surviving army points and you're less likely to get major swings in positions attained based on the loss of a very cheap unit in one round for example.
Focuses on generalship over kills:
I like the idea of a general being briefed on his mission objectives prior to an engagement, picking the forces best able to achieve those and then focussing on those above just all out war. Generals want to achieve their aims with minimal casualties and that is what I wanted to explore with these really. It changes the mindset from list building right through to the dice draws. You should be thinking first and foremost of the mission objectives rather than tabling your opponent. You should both be able to play an interesting game where you are in direct competition with one another rather than executing or receiving a turn 2 tabling (I hope!!)
Unknown element:
Secondary objectives rolled at random pre-game with a fallback "default option"
This adds an element of in-game bluff as well as a risk/reward element to list building.
These will no doubt be the part that really needs some in-depth playtesting by the community at large as certain forces will inherently be better at some than others and to be honest, I'm ok with that. Every force should have strengths and weaknesses and each secondary objective has a counterplay and some element of risk inherent to it.
Missions that feel right:
some games i've played have some very odd mission design, often feeling largely arbitrary events orchestrated just for a reason to get you to fight. In the blurb and the terrain suggestions of my pack, I've tried to set a story in the mission that is a balanced encounter but should also have a good reason for the encounter to happen in the first place.
The biggest problem I can see is that I've been quite specific with terrain recommendations and that is likely to be a problem for larger events due to amounts required. As we're not at the point of having regular events with 60+ players, I'm hoping that this won't be a problem *yet* but acknowledge that this could be a problem in places and have set these out as guidelines only.
"Tools for the mission" vs "Take all comers"
I guess this could be contentious but I hate TAC list building in Antares because each force plays so differently and It doesn't really feel right for what I am trying to achieve with the missions. The forces a general would want for besieging a facility would be very different to a rapid supply raid and I wanted players to be able to bring lists that cover off against potential "skew" lists/factions as well (eg list A= light infantry force but you're now opposing a Ghar player. Player then uses list B with a tank and heavier troops for that game but now has less inherent speed for doing main objectives) and it can give flexibility to deal with overly dense/sparse table set ups that tend to occur where a TO's terrain has been too liberal or not enough was owned for the number of tables in use on the day etc.
Ok, on to the pack itself. Please note that this is a beta, all input is welcomed and I want this to be a resource that is useful for players and TOs alike, ultimately something that gets used and contributes back to the game I enjoy and the community as a whole.
The V1 beta pack can be found here:V1 (beta) pack
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