Re: [GZG] Re: Points systems

[John K Lerchey <lerchey@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi all,

I normally don't chime in, but part of this finally struck me as being 
something to babble about...

On Wed, 11 Jan 2006, John Atkinson wrote:

> On 1/11/06, B Lin <lin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> > Again you are taking the example to the extreme.  In this case, the
> > mission is known at the beginning of the game, which is to score more VP
> > than the opponent.  The details of which exact ships are worth what VP
> > are hidden, but a) you know the total VP the opposing fleet is worth, b)
> > you know how many ships he has - this is a closed data set and the
> > method is to eliminate the possibilities until your goal is reached.
>
> Your mission should not be stated in artificial gamesmanship terms.

I find two issues with this type of thing, and to some degree with a lot 
of non-FT games.

First, let's look at your VP system as outlined above.

"details of which exact ships are worth what VP are hidden"

Ok fine.  But if this is the case, and all you have to work with is a 
"grand total" and "number of ships", how can you POSSIBLY determine when 
you've achieved the goal of having killed more VPs than your opponent? 
You CANNOT know this until after the battle has concluded.  And at that 
point, it's more likely that either one side is completely destroyed (in 
which case you HAVE to have achieved this goal) or one side hypers out, in 
which case you have to determine the PV after the battle has essentially 
been "won" by the side that stayed.

While there have been lots of examples of objectives (e.g., take out the 
carriers, get a fleet supply ship through, determine the strength of the 
enemy fleet and get out with you lives, etc.), I would caution to NEVER 
NEVER NEVER (did I mention, never?) assign random victory conditions 
(e.g., each player gets some kind of VP token that has to be held or 
captured!) as it tends to make the game feel even more artificial.

That said, I think that Jon's card based minor plot lines sound really 
cool, and could be adpated to any game system. :)

Thanks,

John

John K. Lerchey
Assistant Director for Incident Response
Information Security Office
Carnegie Mellon University


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