One of the best talks I've ever heard about game design was titled "Cursed problems in game design." It is about why some are impossible to make. This occurs when you want two elements in a game that are contradictory. As an example (similar to the main one in Alex's talk), let's say you love games like Go or Chess for their high skill and battle-of-wits feel. Let's say you also like multiplayer games. Surely it must be possible to make a game that feels like multiplayer Chess or Go, right? Well, probably not. Why? Because as soon as you introduce a third player, winning becomes less about skill and more about politics. The most skilled player can lose if they are attacked by the weaker two players, and the least skilled player can win by hiding and letting their opponents kill each other. Thus, the contradiction is that you cannot have pure skill in a game with multiplayer politics.
To defeat cursed problems, Alex proposed four methods (which to me seemed more like a strong and weak version of two strategies*). The first two methods are that you make cause of the contradiction difficult or impossible. You can do this in a multiplayer game of skill by reducing or eliminating player interactions; this is what is done in Yatzee, Dominion (and I think most deck-building games), and Puerto Rico (and many Euro games). Here, politicking stops because player's can't gang up on each other. The other two methods* are that you can downplay one of the goals or highlight the contradiction. In multiplayer skill games, you could do this by making politicking a major piece of skill; this was done in Settlers of Catan (where trading is key) and Diplomacy (a game that is about politicking). In either case, though, you have to give something up - you lose either the richness that comes from player interactions, or the game ceases to be a pure test of skill.
I realized after seeing that talk that wargames like Illeria suffer from a cursed problem. I want my game to do two things: 1) the characters should have interesting and diverse abilities; and 2) games should be evenly matched, such that the player with the best strategy and luck will win. The contradiction comes because characters with interesting abilities are likely to counter one another. For example, a strong warrior would be overpowered by a swarm of weak zombies (since there are so many); however, the zombie swarm could be killed by a wizard with explosive attacks (since it kills them all at once); but the wizard would be defeated by the warrior (since blast attacks give no advantage against one enemy). This creates a rock-paper-scissors system, where the wizard will always beat zombies and lose to warriors, regardless of strategy or luck. If this scales to armies, then games are won not by skill or luck, but by bringing a better army. And, maybe I'm wrong, but it seems like the more interesting and varied the characters become, the stronger and more likely these rock-paper-scissors relationship are to occur.
So, how have other games dealt with this contradiction?
-Magic the Gathering embraces the contradiction - the game is about using your creativity to invent a good deck, rather than being good at playing the cards.
-I think Warhammer does the same as Magic, just to a lesser extent - part of the skill of Warhammer is putting together a good army.
-Keyforge takes the preventive stategy - you cannot craft a deck, and so the game becomes more about the best player. I've also heard the gaming culture of Keyforge is more about discovering how good a deck is, so finding a super-powered deck is a feature, rather than a bug.
-I've never played Kings of War, but based on what I've seen and read, it doesn't look like the character are all that differentiated - the flavor elements that make the armies feel different are small (like Elves rerolling 1s to hit, or undead being unable to run). Every unit has the same weakness, which is being attacked in the flank or rear. As a result, good maneuvering is more powerful than having a better army.
-Netrunner is somewhat similar to Kings of War- having a good deck matters, but there is so much hidden information that bluffing becomes critical.
-Frostrgave abandons the promise of evenly matched games, and instead, it is more about creating a wizard, playing a campaign with that wizard, and telling a story. Because of this, weak wizards will be willing to play strong ones, knowing they will probably "lose," because they will still gain treasure and experience.
Keyforge, Netrunner, and Frostgrave do something else too: these games are not about fighting (even though it happens), they are about gathering resources. I don't know if that fixes the problem, since I feel like there must be some sort of rock-paper-scissors interaction involving gathering resources, but perhaps those interactions are more subtle than direct combat.
I don't know what I want to do in Illeria, because I do so want the players to win with strategy, but I want interesting powers too. Maybe this game is destined to be Warhammer, where having a good party can be more important than being a good strategist. I'm hoping that having varied win conditions will make strategy more important. I'd also like to use the Kings of War method, where a character's advantage can be nullified by in-game strategies more than by other characters. I'm not sure how to accomplish that, though. I guess the way to do that is make in-game events that are super strong, so that a well played rock can beat a poorly played paper.
I'll try to post more as I think more through this topic.
*Edit: I rewatched the talk after posting this, and realized I misremembered the four methods to battle curses. Method #3 was to reward players for good behavior. His example was that in Settlers of Catan tournaments, players get points in the tournament for earning points in the game, rather than winning games. Thus, if an opponent is about to win, this method encourages you to get as many points as you can quickly, rather make self-sacrifices to stop your opponent. I'm not 100% sure how wargames would do this, but I think tournaments and campaigns could accomplish this - if you use the same army/party/deck for multiple games, it might encourage more generalized armies/parties/decks, rather than armies/parties/decks that always win some games and always lose others. Hmmm... Anyway, this edit puts me over 1000 words, so I'll keep thinking and write more later.
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