Re: [FT] Self-Playtesting Scenarios

On Wed, 24 Jan 2001 21:52:22 -0500, "Peter Mancini"
<peter_mancini@email.msn.com> wrote:

>Um, what is the GEV defense???

In the early days of Metagaming's "Ogre" game (later produced by Steve
Jackson
Games), GEVs had I think it was a 3/3 or 4/4 movement rate. That is,
they
could move 3 hexes before firing, and then move 3 after (or 4/4). The
important thing was that the GEV could move the same distance before and
after
firing.

During Ogre's playtesting, hardly anyone tried what was called the "GEV
defense". The non-Ogre player purchased his forces. A "GEV defense"
required
that the player use nothing but GEVs. Well, it was playtested once and
deemed
a failure. After Ogre came out, some players determined that it was
possible
for the GEVs to stay out of range of every weapon except the large
primaries
on an Ogre. This was due to the fact that the GEVs could move stay just
outside of the primary gun range, run in, fire, and run back out. So,
players
would take nothing but GEVs, then take out the primaries. Once the
primaries
were gone, they couldn't be hurt. They would then take out the treads.
The
GEVs would zip in, fire, and zip out of range. The Ogre would be nibbled
to
death by nothing but GEVs. Ogre loses. Almost every time.

Metagaming fixed this in the second edition of the game (and that fix
has
continued since) with GEVs having either 4/3 movement or 3/2 (again, I
don't
have the rules at hand). 

The moral of the story, as it is outlined in the old Steve Jackson book
on
game design (a classic which I am also too lazy to dig out) is that you
test
ALL the strategies, even the seemingly dumb ones. And you test them more
than
once.

Allan Goodall		       awg@sympatico.ca
Goodall's Grotto:  http://www.vex.net/~agoodall

"Now, see, if you combine different colours of light,
 you get white! Try that with Play-Doh and you get
 brown! How come?" - Alan Moore & Kevin Nolan,