Re: Re: Blue Sky Thinking (was: Re: [GZG] re: Wanted)

[John K Lerchey <lerchey@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Another way to think about point systems (given that no historical TO&E is 
provided - hey, it's sci-fi!) is not to "balance" the game necessarily, 
but rather to provide limits.  All commanders, throughout history, have 
wanted more.  More troops, more tanks, more ammo, better equipment, more 
artillery support, *more something* to ensure that they would be able to 
acheive their goals without suffering losses, setbacks, whatever.

A point system can be used to, and explained to, provide such limits.  If 
you have 2K points, and you're building an infantry and you want PA for 
everyone, along with some FSVs, off-board artillery, air strikes, etc., 
and you *can't afford it all*, you have to *not have something*.  The 
player has to design the force and decide on what not to have, and thus, 
is limited.

Balance isn't there in real life.  It's not there in most sci-fi battles 
(how balanced were any of Hammer's Slammers battles?  The MI in Heinlein's 
Starship Troopers vs the skinnies?, Serenety Valley?, Falkenberg's Legion 
on New Sparta?) and certainly not in history (General Custer?).  Why does 
it NEED to be in games?

Some of our better games have had serious balance issues in them (and most 
often due to poor planning on my part!).  The folks you game with make a 
difference, but some kind of point sysetm is, IMHO still worth while.

:)

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

On Fri, 3 Nov 2006 laserlight@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

> > What's needed is a tutorial in creating scenarios. Even then, as anyone who has done it enough will tell you, the only way to get a really good scenario is to playtest the dickens out of it. There is no way to balance a scenario otherwise.
>
> Well...if you have a good gamemaster with a reserve pool. But at some point you have to stop feeding forces.
>
> Someone else asked:
> > > better) are put off by the "no points" nature of SG2. "How can the game be fair?" they ask (and bear in mind that not a few have been r**ted in GW game-store games by bent rules and the battle-winning- model-of-the-month, so trust levels are low).
>
> So....you're saying they want a point system like the one which obviously doens't generate even battles?
>
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