Rob
06-18-2007, 12:02 AM
http://www.tabletopgamingnews.com/?p=8245
A few years ago I remember reading a comment by Jervis Johnson that he enjoyed gaming without point costs. Whether it be scenario based games or simply putting together armies that looked like fun to game, his point was that he thought that point systems weren’t a necessary part of social gaming. I don’t recall what my exact reaction was to the idea but I think that disbelief is a succinct way to sum it up.
I have a lot of respect for Jervis. He has produced some of the most enjoyable games to come from GW and he certainly knows a heck of a lot more about game design that I ever will but at the time I thought that the idea of playing games without point systems was a recipe for disaster. Now, I am thinking that perhaps Jervis is right and point costs are a wasted effort
Since then I have started to come around to Jervis’ way of thinking. I have been doing quite a bit of gaming recently that involves playing with models and units that have no point costs. This is part of the testing process of a game I am developing and the fact is that we simply don’t have any point costs. The funny thing is that each game starts with my opponent and myself judging the forces in question and then determining if we think they are balanced or not. So far we’ve not been wrong. All of our games have been quite interesting and fun and no one side has had overpowered the other. Its been such an interesting process that I am contemplating not using traditional point costs in the game at all and instead using a more generic measure of a unit’s power instead.
There are several games that don’t use points. Rattrap Production’s range of Pulp games all use generic grades (1, 2 or 3) to differentiate the units in each game and to use as a structure to limit each players access to units. These games are quite successful and are as balanced or unbalanced as the players involved want the game to be.
Point costs don’t mean that a game you are going to play is balanced. We recently had a Confrontation game that involved my Griffon force taking on a very men Wolfen warband. I was slaughtered. And my opponent kept on forgetting his to make me take Fear rolls as well. The funny thing is, we knew going into it that the two armies we picked weren’t balanced. His Wolfen force was going to crush me and it was assumed by both of us that would be the case. And yet we both had armies of the same point value.
Warhammer and 40K are, I think, great examples of how a point system may prove ultimately fruitless. Both games are fairly complex in terms of the number of interactions between units, characters and equipment. And while I have no problems using the army lists from those games for friendly encounters, I have yet to see a tournament discussion that doesn’t involve some debate about the balance of lists, people min-maxing armies and general problems with them. Some people have suggested that the complex number of possible interactions in a typical Warhammer or 40K army list makes it physically impossible to fully test. This may be the case.
If so, one has to wonder what reason there is to include them in games at all? AT-43 is an interesting example of game that has point costs but the numbers appear to be largely irrelevant. One can make an effective AT-43 army list without really paying much attention to the point costs and simply balance out the number of troop units and vehicles. In AT-43 its not the point costs so much as the restrictions that the army lists place on types of units and how many you can access.
Might that be a solution for games like Warhammer? I’m not sure but I do know that I am going to continue to explore gaming without point costs.
At least that way, if my opponent’s army is unbalanced its my fault.
A few years ago I remember reading a comment by Jervis Johnson that he enjoyed gaming without point costs. Whether it be scenario based games or simply putting together armies that looked like fun to game, his point was that he thought that point systems weren’t a necessary part of social gaming. I don’t recall what my exact reaction was to the idea but I think that disbelief is a succinct way to sum it up.
I have a lot of respect for Jervis. He has produced some of the most enjoyable games to come from GW and he certainly knows a heck of a lot more about game design that I ever will but at the time I thought that the idea of playing games without point systems was a recipe for disaster. Now, I am thinking that perhaps Jervis is right and point costs are a wasted effort
Since then I have started to come around to Jervis’ way of thinking. I have been doing quite a bit of gaming recently that involves playing with models and units that have no point costs. This is part of the testing process of a game I am developing and the fact is that we simply don’t have any point costs. The funny thing is that each game starts with my opponent and myself judging the forces in question and then determining if we think they are balanced or not. So far we’ve not been wrong. All of our games have been quite interesting and fun and no one side has had overpowered the other. Its been such an interesting process that I am contemplating not using traditional point costs in the game at all and instead using a more generic measure of a unit’s power instead.
There are several games that don’t use points. Rattrap Production’s range of Pulp games all use generic grades (1, 2 or 3) to differentiate the units in each game and to use as a structure to limit each players access to units. These games are quite successful and are as balanced or unbalanced as the players involved want the game to be.
Point costs don’t mean that a game you are going to play is balanced. We recently had a Confrontation game that involved my Griffon force taking on a very men Wolfen warband. I was slaughtered. And my opponent kept on forgetting his to make me take Fear rolls as well. The funny thing is, we knew going into it that the two armies we picked weren’t balanced. His Wolfen force was going to crush me and it was assumed by both of us that would be the case. And yet we both had armies of the same point value.
Warhammer and 40K are, I think, great examples of how a point system may prove ultimately fruitless. Both games are fairly complex in terms of the number of interactions between units, characters and equipment. And while I have no problems using the army lists from those games for friendly encounters, I have yet to see a tournament discussion that doesn’t involve some debate about the balance of lists, people min-maxing armies and general problems with them. Some people have suggested that the complex number of possible interactions in a typical Warhammer or 40K army list makes it physically impossible to fully test. This may be the case.
If so, one has to wonder what reason there is to include them in games at all? AT-43 is an interesting example of game that has point costs but the numbers appear to be largely irrelevant. One can make an effective AT-43 army list without really paying much attention to the point costs and simply balance out the number of troop units and vehicles. In AT-43 its not the point costs so much as the restrictions that the army lists place on types of units and how many you can access.
Might that be a solution for games like Warhammer? I’m not sure but I do know that I am going to continue to explore gaming without point costs.
At least that way, if my opponent’s army is unbalanced its my fault.