How to build a two-world wargame

The main hook of Illeria is that the battle takes place in two worlds - the physical and spirit world.  Each character has two bodies, one in each world (I use the term "dopplegangers" to mean the body in each individual world, and "character" to mean the entity that is made up of both dopplegangers).  I've always had two goals:
1) The worlds should feel linked;
2) The worlds should feel different.
Actually implementing these goals has probably been the hardest part of making this game.

I have had many failed ideas for how to implement the two-world system, including:
-Each character can only act with one dopplegangers per turn.  This didn't work because it led to players abandoning one world entirely so they could have all of their characters focus exclusively on the other.
-The rules of each world were basically the same, but the abilities would seem more mystical and surreal in the spirit world; for example, a physical-world summoner would summon animals, and a spirit-world summoner would summon demons or elementals.  This didn't work because the underlying rules were so similar, so the differences in abilities felt like a different shades of the same thing, rather than different things.
-There is one board, and physical- and spirit-world dopplegangers were both there, though they mostly only interacted with dopplegangers of the same the same world; for example, spirit-world dopplegangers cannot attack physical-world dopplegangers unless they have a special attack.  I didn't like this one because it felt too much like there was just one world.  
-Characters who had a power in one world gave their doppleganger in the other world a bonus; for example, if a character's physical-world doppleganger was a melee fighter, then their spirit-world doppleganger would get a bonus to its aim.  This was okay, but my playtesters often complained the worlds didn't feel connected enough.
-There were several abilities which affected both worlds, such as a melee attack that damaged both the character's physical-world and spirit-world dopplegangers.  This might have worked if most of the abilities were like this, but these kinds of abilities are weird and hard to come up with.  As a result, the majority of abilities didn't have direct between-world effects, so the link felt too weak.  

Here is what I've landed on, at least for now.  My underlying concept is that the physical world in the source of life that everything is anchored to, but the spirit world is the source of magic and power.  So, I have the following:
1) Dopplegangers in the spirit world have all of the magical powers (e.g. spells, summoned creatures, exploding archery attacks, melee attacks with status effects).  Dopplegangers those in the physical world have few powers at all, and they aren't super interesting (e.g. simple archery attacks, stat boosts).
2) Characters can become "linked" by having their spirit-world doppleganger capture some part of the battlefield.  If a character is linked, its physical-world doppleganger gains the abilities of the spirit-world doppleganger (e.g. if the spirit-world doppleganger can throw lightning, then the physical-world doppleganger can too if the character is linked; otherwise the physical-world doppleganger has no special powers).
3) The physical-world and spirit-world dopplegangers have different baseline stats.  The physical-world dopplegangers are slower, have less health, and are more susceptible to magic attacks, but are better armored.
4) If a spirit-world doppleganger dies, then the character's physical-world doppleganger becomes weakened, and becomes highly susceptible to magic attacks.
5) If a physical-world doppleganger dies, then the character's spirit-world doppleganger takes damage every turn until they die too.
6) If a character is linked, a physical-world doppleganger can use its action to heal its spirit-world doppleganger.  
7) If a spirit-world doppleganger dies, but the character's physical-world doppleganger is still alive, then there are ways to revive the spirit-world doppleganger.
8) The game winning conditions always occur in the physical world.

I think when I tried #1 and #2 for the first time, it gave me this real sensation of, "This is it, this is what I've been looking for!"  All together, I think that these produce a distinct purpose and feel for each world.  The spirit world feels weird and fantastic (see #1).  The goal of the spirit world is not too win per-se (see #8), but rather to empower your characters in the physical world (see #2).  The physical world feels much less mystical (see #1), and like the source of power is really coming from elsewhere (see #2).  However, actions on the physical world feel more impactful (compare #5 vs. #4), both because they are permanent (see #6 and #7), and because this is ultimately where the game is won and lost (see #8).  And, the differences in baseline stats (see #3) seem to cause abilities to function slightly differently in each world (e.g. I found that a swarm of weak monsters were more damaging in the spirit world, because the characters are generally unarmored).  So, like I said, I'm really happy with what I currently have.

Computer simulations in designing Illeria

lleria has often benefitted from computer simulations as a way to balance abilities.  As mentioned in my last post, two goals of Illeria are (1) to have characters with different abilities, and (2) to have skill play a role in winning (and not just skill in designing a good party).  Thus, I need some way to estimate the relative strength of different abilities, so I can say if two characters are of (approximately) equal power (or how much stronger one character is).  Determining the strength of abilities is hard, however, because Illeria is a complex game.  For example, consider a character with a bow.  That character can damage a warrior several times before that warrior can attack back, though the damage will depend on the warrior's armor and movement, if they are in cover, etc.  Archers are less effective when they move, which could make a character with a bow less useful at capturing objectives.  However, archers can effectively screen areas, potentially scaring opponents away.  How could I possibly begin to think about pricing this?

The short answer is that I use  skills I learned as a mathematical biologist (my day job): I start with a very simple model, and build from there.  Illeria is, at its core, a wargame.  Therefore, a good place to start would be to figure out who would win if two characters fight.  The rules of melee combat are fairly straightforward, so they are not too difficult to code: character 1 attacks character 2 by rolling some dice and seeing how much damage it deals; if character 2 survives, they attack back; then character 1 attacks again; and so on.  If you run this 1000 times, you can determine approximately how often character 1 beats character 2.  This can help you determine the relative benefits of melee abilities and other simple abilities.  For example, you could determine how much of a benefit a character would receive by gaining +1 Health (i.e. being able to take more damage before dying) or +1 Armor (i.e. being able to avoid taking damage).

Once I have the baseline simulation, I can add things to it.  For example, to do archery or ranged spells, I assume that the character gets a certain number of attacks against their opponent (based on the assumption that the characters run at each other and are not obstructed); then they fight in melee.  Thus, archery and spells are essentially a source of free damage.  If a character has animated or summoned creatures, I assume that those creatures will arrive a round or two before their animator/summoner (since if I controlled the animator/summoner, I'd send the creatures in first), but that once the enemy can reach the animator/summoner, then the animator/summoner becomes the target (again, because this is what I would do).  

These simulations are great as a thought experiment, as a way for me to think about my game more rigorously.  For example, I originally had an ability called "Drain life," where a character heals when they hurt their opponent.  At first I thought this would be really strong, but when I ran simulations, it lost against most other abilities.  Why?  Well, characters have 3 health, and attacks deal 0 to 2 damage.  Drain life would give no benefit to a character who struck first (because they could not heal if they have not been injured), or if they died before striking their enemy.  Thus, Drain life can be summarized as: The character gains 1 (or 2 on rare occations) health if they strike their opponent in that window of time between when they are injured but not dead, and they gain nothing otherwise.  Drain life was certainly better than nothing, but far worse than having 1 extra health to begin with.  The simulation forced me to see this.

I'll use future posts to explain how I turn these simulations into a point score for each character.

That said, there is only so much one can get out of these simulations.  There was a great podcast I heard about the dangers of following a model blindly; its  basic lesson was that simulations need to be used as a tool to make you think more, not less.  So, what do I do once the computer gives me its estimate of how many points an ability is worth?  First, I do some mental adjusting to price-in effects the model does not consider.  For example, if an ability makes a character less mobile (e.g. heavy armor), then I figure it is worth fewer points than the computer says.  If it grants a benefit outside of one-on-one combat (e.g. regeneration, which helps a character after the first combat ends), then I figure it is worth a few more points than the computer says.  Second, I playtest everything.  

In the end though, while the simulations are far from perfect, they give me a starting point in which to match abilities.  If I didn't have them, then I'd start just using my gut to estimate the relative value of abilities.  Thus, simulations don't remove the need for playtesting, but they probably save me a couple of rounds of it, which really helps.

Why 3-player chess is impossible, and what this taught me about Illeria

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.

Deciding between two possible stories

Wargames almost always have a complicated backstory that explains why people are fighting.  It is something I've always liked, and want to put in Illeria.  For a long time I had one idea of a story, but about a year or two ago I got a different one, and I'm debating which idea is better.

What do I want in my story?  I want Illeria to work as a campaign game, so that a player could use the same party of characters over multiple games, with them gathering resources for some goal.  The backstory should support this.  I'd love it if the game had a fantasy cyberpunk feel to it (a dark and grungy world, but magic in place of technology).  I want the characters to feel like amateurs, still figuring out magic, able to grow, and uncertain when spells will backfire.  And I really want there to be a feeling that the characters are all alone, and trying to complete the quest.  

My inspiration for that last idea (and some of the others) was the spire hunters in the game Necromunda.  Necromunda is a wargame (and major inspiration for Illeria).  It is set in a cyberpunk future, where gangs fight in the underground of huge cities.  The spire hunters are rich kids who go down to fight as some kind of initiation.  With each group, you start with a goal (such as survive 2 battles per character).  But, the characters are basically abandoned down there, forced to fend for themselves, with no reinforcements or resupplies coming.  If someone dies, they are gone, and there is no way to replace them or re-fill the role that they filled.  I want campaigns in Illeria to produce that feeling of alone-ness, of having one's back against the wall, with the options being complete the quest or die.

Here are the backstories I've been debating between:

1) Illeria was a former prison island and magic research station (inspired by the rocket science done in soviet Gulags).  The wizards - who didn't like being locked up - allied with the prisoners to overthrow the guards.  But after escaping, chaos broke out.  Most people knew they could not live long term on Illeria.  So, parties of characters formed, and they battle for resources that they can use to survive and escape back to the mainland.  

2) The city-state of Avon is undergoing a magical industrial revolution.  This revolution is powered by materials from Illeria.  Illeria is a strange outlands area, one that is teeming with magic, and could not be colonized.  The magic guilds contract out teams of mercenaries to travel Illeria and gather resources (I'm picturing mountain men of the early American west).  They are not allowed to return until they have collected what they were contracted to bring.  Parties often battle trying to secure the resources.

Here are what I see as the pros and cons:

-#2 (Illeria the resource-rich outland) gives what feels like an arguably clearer reason for gathering resources, and a better explanation of what the resources are.  #1 is okay at this, but it would be harder to explain why they'd need a set number of resources, rather than specific things.

-#1 (Illeria the former prison island) gives a better explanation for why the characters are such amateurs.  #2 is okay at this, but it is harder to explain why elite mercenaries don't go back over and over and become super powerful.

-#2 gives a more cyberpunk feel.

-Both backstories give the sense of back-against-the-wall I'm looking for, I'm not sure which one does it better.

-#1 gives a much more narrow and detailed world.  This will make it easier for me to write about it, and perhaps give it a more specific feel.

-#2 gives a bigger world.  This will make it easier for players to make their own campaigns, and there are possibilities of stories beyond the basic one I am creating.  It may also be easier to expand on later.

(That said, for the previous two, I'm not sure if I generally prefer the world representing a specific place and time, or a broad area)

-#2 might be better if I want the real-world land to be a desert (my preference).

Maybe there is more, this is what I have for now.  

I'm on the fence about how to decide.  I do have some text written for story #1, maybe I need to try to write something for #2 and see if it is as good.  That, or maybe I need to poll my playtesters as to what they think.

Taking a playtester's advice seriously but not literally

As my first post-blogging-break post, I wanted to talk about a lesson learned during playtesting.  Before COVID hit, I was part of a playtesting group at Elm City Games in New Haven, CT.  I learned a lot from them, which I will probably blog more about later.  When I played, I was pretty consistently getting told that Illeria didn't have enough of a link between the worlds (this was a problem, as the real hook of Illeria is that you play on two boards simultaneously, which are linked).  I was also sometimes told the game was boring.  I know that when I played on my own, it didn't seem this way- I keep doing more and more to make the worlds linked.  I was left asking, am I seeing something that isn't there?  Is this game only fun for me?

However, it later hit me that a big part of the problem wasn't the game, but was how I was playtesting it.

The playtest group met in the evening of a weeknight.  Illeria could easily go 2 to 3 hours for a first time player.  I often didn't start early in the night, so often players only got to play 2 or 3 turns before the shop closed.  The early turns in Illeria often involved a lot of movement, rather than action.  So, of course the game was boring, and there was little linkage between the worlds.  I solved this by trying to start Illeria earlier, and practicing how to explain the rules, so that we would have more time to play (and could play until the interesting parts).  

I also eventually realized that I had been choosing conditions that didn't really highlight what Illeria was all about.  I think one of the clearest examples of this was a pair of playtests I did over two weeks (with the same people).  In the first week, the players complained that the two boards felt super disconnected, and suggested a lot of fundamental changes.  In the intervening week, I realized that the armies in the playtest game had abilities that didn't directly interact between the two boards, and the game hadn't gone long enough for deeper interactions to occur.  So, instead of making fundamental changes, I switched the armies so that they were full of characters whose abilities lead to direct interactions (such as a character who, when they attacked, would hit enemies on both boards).  Suddenly, the players really liked it.  So, the solution was already part of the game, I just needed to show it off.

The lesson I learned from all this is how important it is to put your best foot forward when showing the game.  Illeria will be a game with lots of characters and lots of different abilities, and a random person playing the game for the first time will only see a small subset of those characters.  So, it is really important to chose characters that will really show off what is neat about Illeria.  I will keep this in mind, both for future playtesting and for demo-ing the game.

As I write this, it almost makes me wonder why I have any abilities that don't highlight everything Illeria has to offer?  I mean, in many was its because I want some abilities that are just neat, or tactical.  But, I don't know, this is making me think that perhaps the game would be better if instead of the players having many options for a party, they had only the most interesting ones.  I need to think further.  

It also left me to realize that while it is super critical to take feedback seriously, that I shouldn't always take it literally.  I need to try to get into the person's head, and ask, "Is this game really broken, or is there something about the context of this playtest game that made the game feel broken?"

I'm back after a long break

It has been a long time since I posted here. Since my last post, I finished my PhD, got married, and moved 3 times. I'm back in my home town in Tempe, AZ, and looking into a major career change (and taking a bit of a break). Illeria was always a game I'd work on for about a month and then put down for six months, though lately, I've been working on it continuously for about the last two years. I'm getting more determined to finish it. 

I'm resolving to try to write more on this blog. Right now I'm hoping to put one 500-1000 word post every week.

New games, and successes (mostly)

Hey everyone, I played two games recently against my girlfriend Sarah. Sarah is actually really not a wargammer, but was curious about this game that I have been working on for so long (and is ridiculously sweet overall, and the type of person who would do something like that). Both of us played with the pre-made parties, and Sarah selected the wizard group. Basically, everyone in this group, except for one character, can cast spells. I was a little nervous about this, because one of the major benefits of spellcasters is that they are super flexible, and can use a ridiculous amount of magic. I was worried that she would get overwhelmed with all of the options. However, she actually managed really well, especially by game 2. I selected a group of characters that summoned creatures. Game 1 I got beat, terribly, and it was basically my own fault. I wasn't able to summon creatures to the board very rapidly, and I didn't do a good job of keeping my guys hidden. The end result was that I got mowed down by magic arrows before I could really do anything. She won in a landslide. Game 2 was a rematch. I knew I made some bone-head mistakes during game 1, but I was also worried that the wizards might be a little over-powered. So, we decided to try it again. Sarah actually looked forward to the idea. Basically, now that she knew how wizards worked, she was looking forward to trying a new game. In this new game, I kept my characters mostly hidden for the first couple of turns, to allow them to start summoning creatures. Then, I burst out and attacked. I ended up getting beat, but it was really close for most of the game. I think I lost because of a combination of bad dice rolls, risks (some of which I would take again) that didn't pay off, and small tactical failures that blew up. For example, Sarah had a character that ran around with 1 health for basically the entire game, and due to a combination of bad rolls, not throwing enough resources at her, and really good moves to defend her character, that character never died. I learned a few things during this game. First, it is not a good idea to have an entire team of characters with summoning powers. Basically, summoning creatures costs energy points (a very limited resource), and so if you have lots of them, you will never use all of them. Second, right now I have these things called "life towers" that allow you to bring some of your characters back from the dead. They don't seem super useful, and it might be better if it was a combination of bringing characters back from the dead, and healing non-dead characters. Third, right now I have it that wizards can cast spells while in melee, but then can't attack during the turn. The net result of this was that many of her characters got to attack before I was able to, and occasionally she would kill one of my guys and free herself from melee. I think I am okay with this as a rule, though I will see what happens in the next few games. Finally, I need to figure out a better way to do the end-game conditions. Right now, every turn you add up your "morale", compare morale scores, and then roll dice to see if the game ends. It takes too much time, and is kind of finicky, and doesn't make a whole lot of sense. As soon as you start winning a tiny bit (including before blood is drawn), you have to start testing, but then you need to be ahead by a ton for the testing to mean much. I might change it to each party getting three secret (or not secret) missions, and if they complete all three, they win. The one really good thing I would say about this game: It felt the way that I wanted it to. There were a lot of points in the game where I didn't know what to do, and had to really think for a while about where to commit my troops, and how to use them. This is the strategic wargame feeling that I wanted this game to make. Not to dis on Warhammer 40K, but as much as I have always liked that game, it often felt like after you build your army and place in on the board, 95% of all decisions are obvious. This didn't feel that way. After this, I don't think that there will be another direct rematch. However, I would like to play Sarah again with a different party. She has decided that she really likes her wizards.