Switch Theme:

Necromunda: The fundamental flaw of all official GW campaigns  [RSS] Share on facebook Share on Twitter Submit to Reddit
»
Author Message
Advert


Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you:
  • No adverts like this in the forums anymore.
  • Times and dates in your local timezone.
  • Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance.
  • Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely.
  • Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net.
If you are already a member then feel free to login now.




Made in no
Longtime Dakkanaut





Vorian wrote:
Sure, a GM should be there to decide - oh, this round there's a zombie invasion and you have d6 zombies spawned on a 6 each turn.

The GM should not be there to eyeball the relative acceptable strengths and advances of a gang each round.

Its not like this is particularly controversial, its pretty standard across all manner of games.

Rather than the graphs in Baxx's original post you want them to look like this :

Edit: You could achieve this by doing something like introducing an upkeep charge of (#territories - 2) credits per territory you own for example, if you work off Baxx's 10 credits per territory example.

Exactly right, thanks again! I was unable to put it clearly as you manage in so few lines.

A campaign should be DESIGNED to create a curve like you show. Instead, the new Necromunda campaign is DESIGNED to have the opposite curve. That's independent of GM and so GM isn't really relevant for establishing that fact.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/12/01 13:05:15


 
   
Made in au
Owns Whole Set of Skullz Techpriests






Versteckt in den Schatten deines Geistes.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
This is why Necromunda needs an active GM.
I reject this premise. Necromunda shouldn't need a GM to run correctly, and exponential growth is something that needs to be curtailed within the rules themselves, not by someone making up house rules on the fly.

Industrial Insanity - My Terrain Blog
"GW really needs to understand 'Less is more' when it comes to AoS." - Wha-Mu-077

 
   
Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut




Baxx wrote:
Vorian wrote:
Sure, a GM should be there to decide - oh, this round there's a zombie invasion and you have d6 zombies spawned on a 6 each turn.

The GM should not be there to eyeball the relative acceptable strengths and advances of a gang each round.

Its not like this is particularly controversial, its pretty standard across all manner of games.

Rather than the graphs in Baxx's original post you want them to look like this :

Edit: You could achieve this by doing something like introducing an upkeep charge of (#territories - 2) credits per territory you own for example, if you work off Baxx's 10 credits per territory example.

Exactly right, thanks again! I was unable to put it clearly as you manage in so few lines.

A campaign should be DESIGNED to create a curve like you show. Instead, the new Necromunda campaign is DESIGNED to have the opposite curve. That's independent of GM and so GM isn't really relevant for establishing that fact.


Not to be overly mean, but I don't think there was a conscious decision to have it work like this. I think it's more likely the system was made without really thinking how it would develop.

Its something players would come up with rather than a game designer who understands what they are doing and why they are doing it.
   
Made in no
Longtime Dakkanaut





Of course, I can't know it was designed this way intentionally. It may have been designed this way unintentionally. But I find it very suspicious that someone who works for GW and claims they played related games in the past are not aware about key self-balancing campaign mechanics of all previous campaign-based games. They simply dropped all of it and called it a day.

And for the sake of being fair, there are some attempts at mitigating the problem. There was a very poorly written white dwarf article mimicking the blood bowl petty cash system. There are favours which are very random and requires heavy book-keeping. The alliances could in theory help, but that's flawed as well (only some alliances differ depending of the gang, and they use reputation as measure). Then you have agents which are also sub-optimal in similar ways.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/12/01 14:02:32


 
   
Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut




I can only imagine it wasn't designed on purpose because no one in their right mind is making a campaign where snowballing is likely as the initial design goal.

You must surely start out with the aim that all gangs will tend towards a middle ground.

To do this you need diminishing returns at the top and catch up mechanisms at the bottom.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/12/01 14:20:12


 
   
Made in no
Longtime Dakkanaut





Yes, similar to rubber banding effect.
   
Made in gb
Growlin' Guntrukk Driver with Killacannon





Scotland, but nowhere near my rulebook

Baxx wrote:
As I've said, I need a common understand of the facts.

Would you say a campaign could be designed to be exponential?
Would you say a campaign could be designed to be linear?
Would you say a campaign could be designed to include self-balancing mechanics?
Would you say a campaign could be designed without self-balancing mechanics?


Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes

Now, the more complicated answer to these - is Necromunda any of these things?

If my reading of your first post is correct, you're assuming essentially a triangular distribution for for the income of the gang that wins every game, with a cumulative income of:

((g^2 + g)/2)*10+10+5

Where g is the number of games played. 10 is the income per territory, and 5 is the game reward.

This is, obviously, an exponential distribution - it has an exponent (g^2)

This only works when you have the assumption that after every game, you get a territory. Given that there are generally a limited number of territories in a campaign, number of players x 3, this can't be true. In the worst case in a campaign of, say, 3 players:

Assume Player A never loses
Assume Player B never wins against A, but always wins against C
Assume Player C never wins and somehow doesn't get massively annoyed and go do something else

After 9 games, assuming everyone plays each other at the same rate:

Player A has 6 territories, B has 3 territories, C has none. (Starting settlements excluded)

The (g^2) link is now broken - at this point, there are no more territories to hand out. Income becomes linear. Unless A keeps winning against B in the "takeover" phase, at which point income becomes linear after a further 3 games between A and B.

So yes - given this very specific set of circumstances, and mainly during the initial stages of a campaign, the growth will be exponential. After that it will become linear, though the linear growth gradient of the the gang which "won" the exponential phase will be greater than the gradient of the other gangs.

So - how did older and other campaign games avoid this and what can be done about it? What does this mathematical nonsense actually mean?

If we assume that other campaigns have a linear slope, it's a relatively simple matter to balance the campaign. Give a "new joiner" or somebody who's fallen way behind (maybe they were ill or on holiday) a large injection of territories so that their income graph gradient will roughly match the gangs already in the campaign, give them an initial cash boost so that they've got roughly the same gang cash as the gangs which have been accumulating since the start of the game.

Who does this? The GM.

"But wait, Graphite!" you cry, "You've entirely missed the point! Our campaign doesn't have a GM! Our campaign shouldn't need a GM! And anyway what about the runaway gang who are dominating the campaign because they came out on top in the exponential growth phase!"

To which I reply - you do have a GM. Who's letting this extra player join the campaign? The existing players. The GM duties are spread between them, they are a Gestalt. A GGM if you will. I'm assuming that since you're playing a campaign together you're talking to each other on at least a semi regular basis! Does this require everyone's agreement? I dunno, I've never met the people you play games with.

Equally, if somebody's absolutely running away with the campaign - Surely the GGM is going to notice? Who is this player in your group who derives joy from totally stomping on everyone else? Why on earth does anyone still play with them?

And if somebody's gang has been absolutely banjaxed through no real fault of their own - surely they will speak up to say "My gang is crippled, guys, can I start over?" Are you, as a group, going to say no? Do you like your fellow players to be miserable? Of course you don't.

So how did Old Necromunda avoid this? Well, firstly - there was no exponential phase - for income. Territories changed hands extremely infrequently, and even then it was fairly rare that you had enough gangers to work all the territory you. The game on the table had very little connection to your campaign income etc. If everyone started off at the same time (ish) time, generally everyone would have the same income.

However, for XP - the individual gangers would absolutely gain XP exponentially. The more experienced you were, the more likely you were to do things that gained you XP. So in some ways, old Necromunda was even more exponential!

Also note that the underdog bonus as implemented in the previous version of Necromunda does not help you win that individual game - it grants you additional rewards for playing a game that you are likely to lose. Most importantly it gave your gangers additional XP (because let's face it - nobody EVER got a worthwhile "giantkiller" bonus payment).

So I think your argument that "Necromunda is exponential now but it wasn't before" is flawed. It was always exponential - just on XP rather than on cash. And as I've previously stated, I think the current underdog system is less good than the old one was, and needs more GM or GGM intervention. Given that the fact that cash is king in New Necromunda and XP is less important - if anything it should be more easy to balance a campaign now than it used to be!

I think GW tried to use Rep as another balancing factor, but I don't think it quite works.
   
Made in gb
Joined the Military for Authentic Experience





On an Express Elevator to Hell!!

I will get splinters in my arse here by sitting on the fence and saying both sides of the discussion are correct

- New Necromunda (N18) is lacking the balancing mechanics that other games of its ilk (including the Classic edition) have held previously; this includes wealth taxes, handicap systems, randomisation of advancement. This means, playing out of the box with only the rules as they are written, anyone playing it quickly realises that it's not fit for purpose as a campaign system as victorious gangs get stronger. After a few games, no-one wants to get kerb stomped by a mega toughness Goliath gang kitted out like a Deathwatch killteam, and the campaign dies.
- There have been a stream of constant, relentless discussions on the need for a GM or Arbiter for this game with a campaign in the Necromunda community. The majority consensus is generally that the game has the potential for a better campaign if an Arbiter takes part and the gaming group is chilled about it. If you want a tournament format, you will probable struggle with the game as it is out of the box and it is arguably not playing to the system's strengths.
- There is way, way too much material now released to run a cogent campaign if you try and run all of the expansions, books etc at once. People who live and breathe Necromunda as their main hobby struggle, for people who dabble it is an impossible task. I tried recently and my head exploded like the guy from Scanners. Instead the general advice (from people that know a lot more than me) is to pick and choose a few bits from the new releases and temper them with some fan-made rule amendments, which blunt the most egregious rule feth-ups. Have a look on Yaktribe and there are a number of good threads on this.

My view is that GW have released Necromunda as a veteran community/fan service release. It's designed to appeal to 30/40+ year-old gamers who played the game first time around. GW are fully mining all of the historical miniatures and releasing them in lovely new miniatures that they know those veterans will want to collect (anecdotally I know of a few people that have collected the miniatures, don't play any other game, and are quite likely never to use these miniatures in a proper game - but have bought them for nostalgia's sake).
But, the 'miniatures first' (i.e. just release everything, worry about the rules afterwards) while cool for miniatures collectors, has created a nightmare for anyone that wants to play the game and use everything. There doesn't seem to be any central control or oversight of the rules, and so they have ended up as a kind of stew with everything thrown into it.

The game is amazing but has a lot of caveats attached, for me these would be: Play with your mates (not PUGs), none of them can be WAAC as the game is too easy to break, have a trusted arbiter, use a hybrid rule system (N18 game for the standard mechanics but bring in the pre and post game from the classic edition, for balancing purposes) and do as much planning as you can for narrative events.

I would say absolutely Necromunda has given me some of my favourite ever wargaming experiences, certainly in the classic edition. The new edition has helped with the lovely new miniatures, but brought in a lot more pit-traps that need to be successfully navigated so the game can be enjoyed. Just my tuppence worth

Epic 30K&40K! A new players guide, contributors welcome https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/751316.page
Small but perfectly formed! A Great Crusade Epic 6mm project: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/694411.page

 
   
Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut




Here's a simple question then.

Are there any issues that better rules are incapable of solving and are only able to be solved by a GM?

If rules can function well without a GM, surely we all agree that is preferable?
   
Made in gb
Growlin' Guntrukk Driver with Killacannon





Scotland, but nowhere near my rulebook

I do agree with that yes.

I think it's agreed that GW's rules as written currently don't solve the issues with the campaigns that people want to play (long campaigns with gangs dropping in and out)

I think this is less because it's impossible to do, and more because GW's intention was to have multiple sequential short campaigns.

(This also makes sense from a sales point of view, incidentally - you're more likely to buy and start a new gang for each campaign, which will make them more money than gradually evolving one gang for years)

I think we're possibly having difficulty framing exactly which problem we're trying to solve in a long campaign by framing the discussion in terms of Necromunda having exponential gang experience game and no other game ever having that. I don't think that's true.

I think it's just more obvious in Necromunda because the current exponential part of a campaign results in a gang having obvious on-table bling, rather than in other games where the bling is hidden on your roster sheet in terms of skills, stat boosts and XP.
   
Made in no
Longtime Dakkanaut





 Graphite wrote:

Now, the more complicated answer to these - is Necromunda any of these things?

Amazing, an honest answer - I'd almost given up hope earlier. You understood my argument and improved upon it. Yes, you show clearly that the whole campaign is not exponential, but there are an exponential component to it. Well done. To my defence, I didn't set out to make it perfect, but to prove a point. A point someone here probably still haven't understood properly.

When you say "who enjoys stomping everyone else", it's one of my best friends going back 20 years of wargaming. And it's not something they wanted, but it happened accidentally when they made their new plastic van saars with plasma, and I made my goliaths with various loadouts including many pistols and close combat weapons from the FW weapon packs. That's not a topic I'm interested to discuss here, suffice to say it ended exponentially bad from my perspective. It didn't affect our friendship, just putting necromunda on pause with a fading enthusiasm. Because who am I to say to my opponent that he can't have all those plasmas? That he can't have all that BS2+? We don't play like that in any other game. That's not what my entire gaming experience is about.

One of the main expectations I had for this game back in 2017 was a solid campaign. Turned out nothing was solid at that time. A lot of things have been fleshed out since, more gangs, more weapons ++. But I've yet to see a proper campaign for this game, and without one, there's not much to build on (for me at least). And I'm reminded every time one of these books come out with a "new" campaign, having the exact same structure and problems as all previous campaigns. Dominion, Law & Misrule, Uprising and now Outlander.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2021/12/01 16:00:26


 
   
Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut




The short campaigns suffer from snowballing too though? I don't want to get bogged down in a discussion over what is exponential or not, but you can snowball.

Solving it for short campaigns then allows perpetual campaigns.


The point about skills/xp contributing to the balance problem is valid, hopefully no one is suggesting BB, Mordeheim, old Necro campaign rules couldn't be improved upon - its just that lack of an upkeep mechanic is a pretty major flaw that they don't suffer from.
   
Made in no
Longtime Dakkanaut





 Pacific wrote:

My view is that GW have released Necromunda as a veteran community/fan service release. It's designed to appeal to 30/40+ year-old gamers who played the game first time around. GW are fully mining all of the historical miniatures and releasing them in lovely new miniatures that they know those veterans will want to collect (anecdotally I know of a few people that have collected the miniatures, don't play any other game, and are quite likely never to use these miniatures in a proper game - but have bought them for nostalgia's sake).

I would be exactly such a person, however my impression is opposite. Those who knew and loved the old game cannot stand all the new stuff. Sure, the minis are nice, and I like collecting them because I was too young and too poor to get much of the official minis back in the day. My impression is that Necromunda is super popular today to people who doesn't know what bloodbowl or gorkamorka is. People who doesn't know that a necromunda gang shouldn't be better equipped than space marine devastators. Some times I feel very alienated when discussing online with other necromunda players - we don't share any relevant/common gaming experience at all. To me, new necromunda feels like a stab in the back to those who kept it alive throughout all these years. I'm being pessimistic here, so take this with a grain of salt.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Vorian wrote:
Here's a simple question then.

Are there any issues that better rules are incapable of solving and are only able to be solved by a GM?

If rules can function well without a GM, surely we all agree that is preferable?

This is the way. My impression is that not all can agree on this. Because GM.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2021/12/01 16:13:22


 
   
Made in gb
Growlin' Guntrukk Driver with Killacannon





Scotland, but nowhere near my rulebook

Baxx wrote:
 Graphite wrote:

Now, the more complicated answer to these - is Necromunda any of these things?

Amazing, an honest answer - I'd almost given up hope earlier. You understood my argument and improved upon it. Yes, you show clearly that the whole campaign is not exponential, but there are an exponential component to it. Well done. To my defence, I didn't set out to make it perfect, but to prove a point. A point someone here probably still haven't understood properly.


I like having a good ol' root around in the mathematics. I started out convinced that by mathematical usage what you were describing wasn't exponential growth, banged together a spreadsheet and looked up the formulae for a triangular distribution and discovered that to my surprise, yeah, it is exponential. Which was a neat thing to work out.

I still think there's a large degree of "wobble" in it even before we reach the linear phase as I don't think the campaign leader will win every single game, but for the purposes of our discussion - yeah. It's exponential.

Is that bad? When everyone follows the same exponential curve (roughly) - no. It's just a thing. Once you can see a thing you can try to work out what to do about it.

When you say "who enjoys stomping everyone else", it's one of my best friends going back 20 years of wargaming. And it's not something they wanted, but it happened accidentally when they made their new plastic van saars with plasma, and I made my goliaths with various loadouts including many pistols and close combat weapons from the FW weapon packs. That's not a topic I'm interested to discuss here, suffice to say it ended exponentially bad from my perspective. It didn't affect our friendship, just putting necromunda on pause with a fading enthusiasm. Because who am I to say to my opponent that he can't have all those plasmas? That he can't have all that BS2+? We don't play like that in any other game. That's not what my entire gaming experience is about.


Ah. Fair enough, criticism withdrawn - an unfortunate case where modelling for theme happens to coincide with modelling for power. That's really difficult to mitigate against in any setting or game, where powerful things tend to act more as force multipliers (exponential again!) rather than a linear increase in power. A classic example I came up against in 3rd/4th edition 40k was a guy with three Hammerheads. This is not an insane army by any means - it's a light tank squadron with backup - but I had a foot troop and light vehicle Ork army. Taking down 1 hammerhead? Sure. Three? Against that many submunition pie-plates? Not a chance in hell.

I don't know what you can actually do about that, (well, OK, I have some ideas) but as you say it's not the topic of the current discussion.

Vorian wrote:
The short campaigns suffer from snowballing too though? I don't want to get bogged down in a discussion over what is exponential or not, but you can snowball.

Solving it for short campaigns then allows perpetual campaigns.

The point about skills/xp contributing to the balance problem is valid, hopefully no one is suggesting BB, Mordeheim, old Necro campaign rules couldn't be improved upon - its just that lack of an upkeep mechanic is a pretty major flaw that they don't suffer from.


Whether snowballing is due to an exponential distribution or otherwise doesn't matter too much, until you're trying to develop a mathematical way to fix it.

I'd actually think of it the other way around, though - if you solve it for long campaigns it will automatically never be a problem for short campaigns, except that if you push it too far so that (for example) nobody will be able to deploy an Ambot until they've got a couple of dozen games in, it could get annoying. People have the shiny plastic toy soldiers. They want to be able to put them on the table without having to wait months to do it. It's not necessarily as simple as "A long campaign is just a short campaign that lasts for ages".

I don't think the upkeep mechanic is necessarily the problem. As I've said, I think that in Oldcromunda income was essentially flat, with a slow increase. Newcromunda XP is essentially flat with a slow increase. They're both throttle back by either being "taxed" (Old) or really slow to gain (New, with tax included in the fact that you gain advances slower the more XP you have)

I think the problem is that the exponential XP in Oldcromunda was counteracted by massive underdog XP bonuses. Newcromunda doesn't have an equivalent where the exponential (ish) income is counteracted by big underdog cash bonuses.

Essentially, it looked like Old Necromunda was balancing a campaign by penalising high performing gangs to prevent them getting too far ahead, while in fact it was balancing a campaign by giving extremely high rewards to lower level gangs until they caught up.
   
Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut




Old Necro had normalised income - which was then also reduced by gang size. As Baxx was alluding to above, it was very different and with far less income once you got going.

The XP in Old Necro does have diminishing returns though. The XP required between each level grows exponentially so you gradually improve less as you accumulate xp, until ultimately you hit the max cap.

The system in new Necro diminishes less because its only repeat characteristics that gain the 2xp tax
   
Made in gb
Joined the Military for Authentic Experience





On an Express Elevator to Hell!!

Baxx wrote:
 Pacific wrote:

My view is that GW have released Necromunda as a veteran community/fan service release. It's designed to appeal to 30/40+ year-old gamers who played the game first time around. GW are fully mining all of the historical miniatures and releasing them in lovely new miniatures that they know those veterans will want to collect (anecdotally I know of a few people that have collected the miniatures, don't play any other game, and are quite likely never to use these miniatures in a proper game - but have bought them for nostalgia's sake).

I would be exactly such a person, however my impression is opposite. Those who knew and loved the old game cannot stand all the new stuff. Sure, the minis are nice, and I like collecting them because I was too young and too poor to get much of the official minis back in the day. My impression is that Necromunda is super popular today to people who doesn't know what bloodbowl or gorkamorka is. People who doesn't know that a necromunda gang shouldn't be better equipped than space marine devastators. Some times I feel very alienated when discussing online

If rules can function well without a GM, surely we all agree that is preferable?


Yes I know from reading around the community there are still a fairly sizeable proportion of Classic players that feel the same way. That are still using the Classic ruleset because they really don't like what has been done to the new game, quite often with those criticisms around either poor balancing of the campaign or just badly written rules.

In some ways we are very fortunate there is such a passionate community really into Necromunda. Eventually GW will stop releasing stuff for it, but that community will look at the rules, blunt the sharp edges, introduce balancing mechanisms and the like to make the game more playable - that's already happening in fact (and I really recommend to anyone reading this, but thinking of starting a campaign, to go to Yaktribe and look at the Community version of the game at the very least).

Epic 30K&40K! A new players guide, contributors welcome https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/751316.page
Small but perfectly formed! A Great Crusade Epic 6mm project: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/694411.page

 
   
Made in gb
Growlin' Guntrukk Driver with Killacannon





Scotland, but nowhere near my rulebook

Vorian wrote:
Old Necro had normalised income - which was then also reduced by gang size. As Baxx was alluding to above, it was very different and with far less income once you got going.


Sort of? It certainly wasn't a cap on higher rated gangs compared to lower rated gangs since no one, EVER, took a gang over 9 if they could avoid it (except outlanders) so everyone's income was fundamentally flat.

The XP in Old Necro does have diminishing returns though. The XP required between each level grows exponentially so you gradually improve less as you accumulate xp, until ultimately you hit the max cap.

The system in new Necro diminishes less because its only repeat characteristics that gain the 2xp tax


In Old necromunda that took a while to kick in though - Juves levelled up FAST - the first 4 levels were 5xp bands - and gangers kept levelling up pretty quickly (The next 4 bands). That's 7 advances before you start to see diminishing returns kick in and the next 7 advances are 20xp. It's only once you've got 14 advances that you start to reach the point where you need 40 xp to advance. And old Necromunda handed out XP like sweets - You got D6 just for showing up. A first game juve, who showed up and did a wounding hit (unlikely, but not unachievable) against a gang with a rating 200 higher, would go up 2 levels and possibly 3. (And that's assuming they lose! D6 + 4 + 5 - a juve who did NOTHING would gain an advance on a roll of 2 or more). Hell, in that circumstance the majority of your gangers would gain 1 advance.

200 difference in gang rating would be far from uncommon in a busy campaign. The rate at which underdog gangs could level up was meteoric. In the above example, a fresh juve in the higher rated gang would level up on a D6 roll of 6!

New Necromunda is a bit different, in that (as you say) there's no diminishing returns mechanic except for Stat improvements, and not even that for Juves. But good grief you have to work for those XP. You get an XP for putting someone out - not wounded, not downed, you actually have to take 'em off the board. And you get 1 XP for turning up. If you're a ganger, or a Juve/Prospect/Champion/Leader who wants to spend their XP on something actually useful you're looking at 6XP. That could, very easily, be 6 games before you even get your first advance. In Old Necro, with no underdog bonus, a ganger who has never achieved anything could reasonably expect to have gained 6D6 XP = 21 on average, and gained two advances. And he'll have been in 12 games, doing absolutely nothing, before his rate of advance slows. Just by existing he'll have added +42 to the gang rating.

Does that illustrate what I'm saying? Income and XP have effectively switched which one grows fast and which one remains fairly constant.
   
Made in no
Longtime Dakkanaut





Racerguy180 wrote:

The reason I see a need for an Arbiter is that they are the balancing tool & represent the unseen hand of Lord Helmwar.

One Gang gets to big for its breeches, Arbiter sends in a Palanite sweep thru their territory

Someone at yaktribe described this as the blue shell

   
Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut






Yes, so you had virtual caps at 9 or 12 members and then those members would start to level much more slowly once your gang was mature, so a gang would start to level out in power.

Meanwhile a gang far behind the average gang would a) not be too many members behind, b) would have their power catch up much quicker and c) not be that much behind in income.

I don't want to say old Necro campaigns were good at preserving competitiveness between the gangs because these mechanics weren't perfect. You could still get huge disparity. But there was an effort to combat snowballing.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/12/01 21:21:48


 
   
Made in no
Longtime Dakkanaut





Thank you. This will be a nice future reference whenever somebody doesn't understand the difference between new Necromunda and all other campaign games..
   
Made in us
Battlefield Tourist




MN (Currently in WY)

Baxx wrote:
 Easy E wrote:
So what's your point?

What is your proposed solution?

As I said, I want to establish the fact that current Necromunda has a fundemantal flaw compared to all other campaigns from the most comparable games. It's not evident that everyone agrees with this, as can be witnessed in this thread.



What are the comparable games? Do they NOT have this flaw? Do you have the "proof" of that as well?

Edit: Also, your proposed "solutions" all ready exist in the old rules, so I am really confused about the purpose of this thread again?

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/12/01 21:50:50


Support Blood and Spectacles Publishing:
https://www.patreon.com/Bloodandspectaclespublishing 
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut




 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
For Necromunda, it depends on the Mission, and how exactly one achieves victory under the mission’s rules.

Winning should come with perks, of course it should. But losing shouldn’t mean you walk away empty handed.

This is why Necromunda needs an active GM.

A gang can pull away from the pack early on not just by winning their games (player skill based, that’s fine), but by lucky rolls on the injury table, decent income rolls and lucky dice when seeking rare equipment. The latter three are all luck based, and so the GM needs to keep abreast of how gangs are doing.

Likewise, I could win my first game by a country mile, but end up with say, a Heavy and a Gang Leader properly dead, their likely expensive equipment lost forevermore. I’m then at a massive disadvantage, as those aren’t commodities so easily replaced.

If one gang really does break away from the pack? The GM needs to be permissive of things not really catered for under the rules. For instance, two or more opposing gangs forming an alliance to kick the snot out of the campaign leader’s gang.

This shouldn’t be a way to punish someone who is leading. Rather, it’s a way to stop them getting complacent. To keep them on their toes and really push them.

In extreme cases, the GM can also unleash something Bloody Awful on the leader. Perhaps the local Enforcers are getting uncomfortable with so much power being concentrated, so decide to disrupt the gang’s activities. There are lots of ways the GM could do this. Perhaps the Guild decide to seize assets/territory for themselves. Maybe they get a visit from 20 or so very heavily armed and not at all caring Enforcers. Those are two which immediately spring to mind. The aim should only be to rein them in, not break the back of their gang.

The campaign isn’t just meant to tell a story. It’s meant to be fun and engaging for all partaking. It’s meant to be a challenge, and a sandbox to play in and explore.

Heck, when I run my campaign, with the backdrop being the early then ongoing exploration and exploitation of a newly opened dome? Any break away players can expect to get the riskiest missions. Yes they might walk away even stronger - but that depends just how nasty I want to get.

In the original Necromunda, my Cawdor often clawed their way to the top of the pile quite quickly. A self moderation I imposed was to face lower down or newer gangs armed only with Power Mauls. I’d still play hard, but as Power Mauls didn’t cause Serious Injury rolls, I could duff my opponent’s gang up without any risk of crippling them.

I still got my win and the territory. They got a boatload of experience helping their gang level up, their not insignificant underdog bonus, all at minimal risk.


Giving struggling gangs a boost is probably my favorite way. GW's added more'n a few tricks to do this with (but heck if I remember them all), but an arbitrator straight boosting is a solid choice


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 H.B.M.C. wrote:
 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
This is why Necromunda needs an active GM.
I reject this premise. Necromunda shouldn't need a GM to run correctly, and exponential growth is something that needs to be curtailed within the rules themselves, not by someone making up house rules on the fly.


An arbitrator is a good idea, but should not be a crutch GW leans on to make their game less rigorously

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/12/02 01:11:11


 
   
Made in no
Longtime Dakkanaut





 Easy E wrote:
Baxx wrote:
 Easy E wrote:
So what's your point?

What is your proposed solution?

As I said, I want to establish the fact that current Necromunda has a fundemantal flaw compared to all other campaigns from the most comparable games. It's not evident that everyone agrees with this, as can be witnessed in this thread.



What are the comparable games? Do they NOT have this flaw? Do you have the "proof" of that as well?

Edit: Also, your proposed "solutions" all ready exist in the old rules, so I am really confused about the purpose of this thread again?


What are the comparable games? Hmm, I don't know, maybe those mentioned ad nauseum since the start?
They do Not have this flaw no. And yes it is proven.

If you are still confused, read the discussion again. Everything you ask is answered multiple times over. I'm used to forums where it's easier to paste pictures, if it was easy on dakka I'd post all the pictures from all the old games. But that's like a 10 min job I don't have time to do now to get them on dakka. You think it's controversial that Blood Bowl has linear growth? You think it's controversial that GorkaMorka has income tax? You think it's controversial that Mordheim as underdog xp bonus and giant killer bonus? You think it's controversial that new Necromunda has exponential growth (at least in parts) and doesn't have any of these self-balancing campaign mechanics? It shouldn't be. For anyone who have played at least some of these games, it should be glaringly obvious.

This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2021/12/02 09:28:20


 
   
Made in gb
Growlin' Guntrukk Driver with Killacannon





Scotland, but nowhere near my rulebook

Baxx wrote:
Racerguy180 wrote:

The reason I see a need for an Arbiter is that they are the balancing tool & represent the unseen hand of Lord Helmwar.

One Gang gets to big for its breeches, Arbiter sends in a Palanite sweep thru their territory

Someone at yaktribe described this as the blue shell


That is absolutely a blue shell

Vorian wrote:


Yes, so you had virtual caps at 9 or 12 members and then those members would start to level much more slowly once your gang was mature, so a gang would start to level out in power.

Meanwhile a gang far behind the average gang would a) not be too many members behind, b) would have their power catch up much quicker and c) not be that much behind in income.

I don't want to say old Necro campaigns were good at preserving competitiveness between the gangs because these mechanics weren't perfect. You could still get huge disparity. But there was an effort to combat snowballing.


Thinking about it a bit more, you're right - the campaign system didn't just have a good catchup mechanic, the effects of higher XP causing slower levelling would kick in for higher level gangs. So both sides tend towards the middle, but I think crucially - the balancing mechanism to get lower level gangs up to the same level as others kicked in immediately, while the mechanism to slow down higher level gangs only kicked in later in the campaign. That allows everyone to feel that they're making progress from their starting point.

 Easy E wrote:
Baxx wrote:
 Easy E wrote:
So what's your point?

What is your proposed solution?

As I said, I want to establish the fact that current Necromunda has a fundemantal flaw compared to all other campaigns from the most comparable games. It's not evident that everyone agrees with this, as can be witnessed in this thread.



What are the comparable games? Do they NOT have this flaw? Do you have the "proof" of that as well?

Edit: Also, your proposed "solutions" all ready exist in the old rules, so I am really confused about the purpose of this thread again?



Yes, other games do have this flaw. But they had better counterbalancing systems.

And the purpose of this thread seems to be to discuss if this flaw exists and to try to frame exactly what the flaw is, and if a significant number of people think that it's fixable or indeed needs to be fixed. I don't think the subject of this thread is to find a solution.

(Because that would require house rules. And therefore the dreaded GM. Unless GW themselves develop a better campaign system, which they have shown absolutely no interest in doing)
   
Made in au
Longtime Dakkanaut





The issue you've hit on is that BloodBowl has a team size, and necromunda does not.

The simplest way I've 'balanced' this is by saying that the 'cost' of a mission is the value of the smallest gang.

so while a larger richer gang has a wider range of models and weapons to choose from, the actual fight itself is more even.

Rather than my 15 dudes with 1500 gang rating taking on your 6 dudes with 300 gang rating...




   
Made in gb
Joined the Military for Authentic Experience





On an Express Elevator to Hell!!

Yes that's a very good point. I know we used to sometimes to the 'quickdraw' scenario (sorry I forget the name - the one where you just had a few gangers against each other, and had to roll to see who lost their nerve and shot first). It was a way of giving the lesser gangs a bit of a chance, although probably didn't change the outcome that often!

You definitely did used to get mega gangs in Classic edition, so there was still a lot of space for imbalance.

We used to mitigate it by having scenarios that made it harder for them, even 2 vs 1 at one point, but again for that you probably need a campaign overseer (I will say that, rather than arbiter) or at least players that are willing to be magnanimous if they are winning comfortably, and to give the lesser gangs a chance and allow the other players to have fun as well.

Epic 30K&40K! A new players guide, contributors welcome https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/751316.page
Small but perfectly formed! A Great Crusade Epic 6mm project: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/694411.page

 
   
Made in no
Longtime Dakkanaut





 Graphite wrote:

Thinking about it a bit more, you're right - the campaign system didn't just have a good catchup mechanic, the effects of higher XP causing slower levelling would kick in for higher level gangs. So both sides tend towards the middle, but I think crucially - the balancing mechanism to get lower level gangs up to the same level as others kicked in immediately, while the mechanism to slow down higher level gangs only kicked in later in the campaign. That allows everyone to feel that they're making progress from their starting point.

Yes, I enjoyed starting a new gang playing against a much stronger gang because it would propel my gang forward (xp underdog bonus). It wouldn't make me fall behind, I would get income regardless of the outcome and extra income if I won (giant killer bonus). I noticed this had changed very quickly in new Necromunda. A new gang is simply stomped without any catch-up mechanics.

Keep in mind that that in new Necromunda, the following correlates strongly:
Winning = more credits, rare items, bonuses, rating, XP, resources, less injuries and death
Losing = less credits, rare items, bonuses, rating, XP, resources, more injuries and death

A gang with only lasguns can cause injuries or death. But a gang with all boltguns will inflict more injuries and death.
   
Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut




 Hellebore wrote:
The issue you've hit on is that BloodBowl has a team size, and necromunda does not.

The simplest way I've 'balanced' this is by saying that the 'cost' of a mission is the value of the smallest gang.

so while a larger richer gang has a wider range of models and weapons to choose from, the actual fight itself is more even.

Rather than my 15 dudes with 1500 gang rating taking on your 6 dudes with 300 gang rating...



This is the second part of the equation really. You have the campaign balance and you have the scenario balance.

It is indeed possible to have horrifically unbalanced campaigns/leagues and restrict the scenarios to keep every battle/match fair.

Blood bowl for example has a very high level before teams begin slowing progress and its quite easy to enter a death spiral, so league balance is generally all over the place and you rely on "match balance" to stop games being completely unfair.

Two options being:

Cut down to the lowest (limiting by gang rating as you mentioned, limiting by gang fighter numbers as Necro old and new does sometimes)

or temporarily increase to the higher (in BB we have inducements, I have played a Necro campaign where you get free hired guns to even it up).


The ideal is you have a decent campaign balance and then some measures to balance scenarios. If you become too reliant on the latter it starts to feel a bit artificial, no-one really wants to play a league with only 3 rostered linemen and the rest in inducements every game!
   
Made in au
Longtime Dakkanaut





I rationalised it through gang arrogance and commitments - big gangs have lots of things they need to keep track of and they don't send their whole gang to fight every little upstart that appears.

So sparing only some of the gang to take on a newb gang means they can keep everything going.


Knowing that you're limited in your gang roster also means you get the opportunity to deploy different types of gangs, to play different types of games and/or to level up gangers that normally get shut out of the fight by the elites.

I've found that it ended up generating more interest in playing lower level gangs and created more tense and interesting games over all.


   
Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut




Yup, it's easy to rationalise pretty much all of these things in a logical story.

The sad thing is these things are pretty trivial to do, but all these games have poorly done systems.

I would love to do a BB league system where you have to pay the players. Would give much better results for long term play (would be a good way to handle Necro too actually).

This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2021/12/02 11:00:28


 
   
 
Forum Index » Other 40K/30K Universe Games
Go to: