My last post brought some discussion on the WarEngine Yahoo group about whether my vision of a WarEngine v3.0 as presented wouldn’t break the “play anything” concepts that have always been at the heart of the WarEngine.  Without further elaboration, it might appear that way, but let’s explore it further.

There are really multiple layers of building out your force.  At its most basic level, you have the charts of point costs for attributes.  When you work at that level, you can do most anything.

Next you have the process of building out a force selection structure.  At this point, you add some restrictions like how many elites you are allowed as compared to troopers or how many hero points you may distribute.  (In the rules, these are presented as global rules, but people routinely agree to suspend those, like modeling GW’s Warhammer 40K system, where all Space Marines are elite [something I am not particularly endorsing, a caveat I put forth based on experience.]  Suspending the point system, though, would mean just building an entirely new system.)

You also restrict the “play anything” principles of the point system with force selections by defining troop types, restricting (or expanding or renaming) tweaks, defining specific armories, and so on.

Finally, using the force selection structure, you pick out an actual force.  You’ve now restricted your selections even further: “I have these troops.”

Put in a more PowerPoint style:

• Points cost tables, turn sequence, concepts like tweaks, hero points, etc  <- The WarEngine
• Limits on elites vs. troopers, default tweak lists, default special powers, etc <- “Official” WarEngine game structure
• Specific force lists designed for a given genre or story and grouped for balance <- Settings, e.g. Shock Force
• Force selection, house rules and exceptions, actual game play <- Games, e.g. “Bob fights Joe”

The parts of my previous discussion on WarEngine v3.0 pertaining to aspects like base profiles, racial profiles, force-level armories and the like are actually guidelines at the second of these levels intended to help players create better settings and not specific to a particular version.

As long as the system includes access to the infrastructure that is The WarEngine, any layers built on top of it by definition can’t limit the “play anything” nature of the game because anyone can develop alternatives to the ways those layers are presented.

There was some discussion on the WarEngine group on Yahoo about putting together  a parallel wiki for a WarEngine v3.0.  The current wiki site captures what we call v2.11, the Shock Force Second Edition ruleset with errata fixed.  A good question followed: what would be in a v3.0?  What follows is my answer.

The core proposed change discussed about a v3 is to the point system.  For example, long range weapons with high AV actually seem underpriced under the current v2.  We drew up at a GenCon (now a couple years ago) a replacement to the Range and AV tables such that their revised point values would be multiplied together instead of added.  The spread for weapon costs became wider while leaving the points for most weapons very close to the current system.

Another concept was to have baseline profiles for trooper, elite, and character, racial/species/faction modifiers that adjust base points and base stats, and a revised tweak system that would in some cases have adjustments based on the underlying related attribute.  For example, a tweak that which adds one to every die in an attack roll is more useful for a five-die weapon than a one-die weapon, so should cost more.

To make building armories for a faction a bit easier, there might also be a base AV bonus for close combat and ranged attacks built into the base profiles so you could create a single armory for weapon selection.  If a basic rifle is 2k2 AV, and the AV profile adjustments for a particular race are trooper=base AV, elite=+1k1 AV, character=+2k2 AV, then the same rifle is 2k2 in the hands of a trooper, 3k3 for an elite, and 4k4 for a character.  Of course, you might have fighter, archer, and wizard base character profiles in a fantasy setting that have different AV profile adjustments in order to add yet more variety.

These are just some examples, but it’s also worth pointing out that the basic principles would still apply: opposed die rolls of the XkY variety for resolving conflicts, keep the complicated stuff on the force building side instead of the game table side, and maximize flexibility so you can play exactly the game you want to play.

It’s no small feat to put together a new version, especially without big dollars behind the effort.  But it would certainly be exciting to see it happen.

It’s all about miniatures.

While you may find the assumption commonplace and pointless – well, there was a time in my gaming experience when it was not.  I’m pretty sure many of you have had that feeling more than once.

I have bought figures to simply represent a game effect or be part of some mathematical exercise inherent in the rules.  I have bought figures, duplicates of figures I already have, simply to win games. Because, you know, if I don’t have enough lascannons and plasma launchers, how am I going to get rid of the big bugs?

It sounds like a game-oholic statement and it definitely sucks. Yet, this is what many game rule sets induce.

Miniature gaming is about miniatures.  It’s about the miniatures you buy because they look plain cool, because they make you laugh, or they have that unexplainable something about them that makes you rejoice like a boy in front of the Christmas tree.

That’s one of the reasons why I fell in love with the WarEngine: minis come first, and then not only do you decide of their profile, but thanks to the flexible and balanced point system you get a good gaming experience out of them.

The experience you will like, because you created it.