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Didn't the old Avalon Hill game Kriegspiel use a similar system to Warpwar? If I remember right, both players chose a card for attack or defense, and this was applied in some way to a results table. A simple, fun, and diceless game.

Okay, for replacing dice in a Warhammer-style of game, it might be something to replace them with a flat damage score.

So suppose a Lasgun is S3, so it causes 3 points of damage. Against a target with T4 you'd need two hits with that lasgun. If the damage is retained over the course of a game, then that Lasgun hit may have an effect latter in the game even if it doesn't pop the first model it hits.

To extend this to armour, cover, and whatnot, make saving throws proportional. You shoot Sv3+ with AP5 and since AP !=< Sv, then the armour reduces the damage by 2/3s, so a lasgun is doing 1 damage to Power Armoured troops.

The only issue I have with many deterministic games is replayabiility. Sure, you can shuffle the pieces, but if a always beats B, etc. then those who learn the system are essentially playing by scripts (IE their are always optimal moves). A good random element shakes that up and forces much more adaptive play. Of course it can also be done poorly and then basically just becomes a dice off.

I think, though, that deterministic games can capture uncertainty, though, based on forcing response to the other player. If there are so many potential responses with compounding responses to those, it becomes much harder to play by script.

Implementation is the challenge. While Go is frequently trotted out for many design examples, it hasn't proved to be a particularly flexible model and relies on a very fixed set of conditions, much like other deterministic games. Indeed, the complexity of Go compared to say chess simply stems from larger placement options and board size.

Arguably, most wargames are hybrids of chess (for positional movement/ advantage) mixed with backgammon (the chance element). What all of these games share is that they are fixed piece/board, deterministic, zero sum, perfect information abstract games. Trying to port this to a variable force, variable field, limited/hidden information, non-abstract game requires basically changing almost every fundamental concept of the game except the deterministic aspect.

Going back to the OP, Snakes and Ladders is an example of too much indeterminism- it removes all agency and reduces the game to pure chance. That makes it a bad game, but also poor comparison to a good deterministic game. Backgammon or poker might be a better example. Or compare S&L to Tic Tac Toe (a poor deterministic game).

What a deterministic game should ensure is that a master will beat a lesser player. Every time. Whether that is a desirable feature is up to the designer.

 jmurph wrote:
Implementation is the challenge. While Go is frequently trotted out for many design examples, it hasn't proved to be a particularly flexible model and relies on a very fixed set of conditions, much like other deterministic games. Indeed, the complexity of Go compared to say chess simply stems from larger placement options and board size.

Exactly. A 2x2 or 3x3 Go board is pretty trivial.

The number of models, and indeed variables, would make Warhammer a decent candidate then for a combinatorial game.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
I see it as extremely Warhammer, because those are the stories that routinely get told. It's not about the strategic positioning and tactical play, because the actual gameplay is pretty shallow. And it's definitely not about the listcrafting to maximize tabletop advantages - nobody wants to talk about that crazy aunt chained to the bed in the basement. No, it's all about the golden BB, the boxcar rout, the snakeeyed hold against all odds. Why, clear as day, I recall the time I one-shotted my opponent's Land Raider on turn 1 and basically won the game right there. That's the essence of Warhammer storytelling.

And the worst part - one-shotting the Land Raider is the *only* thing I remember about that game.

But again, that's because it's the unexpected events that are worth telling. The same goes for any wargame.

Back on topic. If your game is deterministic, then it seems to me that the only place the unexpected can come from is your opponent. The game scenario itself can't introduce anything that both players have to deal with. Whether or not you think that's an end result worth pursuing is a matter of personal preference. I'd be quite happy with that in a more abstract game that wasn't trying to make me pretend I'm "actually there". Chess or Go are excellent examples, and I'm sure there are others. It's something that gets held up as a design ideal for "Euro" games, as I understand it.

When it comes to the unexpected then deterministic large combinatorial systems will beat statistical probabilty systems. Deterministic large combinatorial systems like 19x19 games of go produce the unexpected routinely. Statistical probablitity systems like mass dice rolling however averages out effectively producing the "unexpected" predictably infrequently. Like the 40 spearmen rolling 40 dice to see how many roll over 4+ to hit. They will regularly and predictably produce on average 20 stabs and produce outlying outcomes like "none hit" and "all hit" an equally predictable number of times.

 AndrewGPaul wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
I see it as extremely Warhammer, because those are the stories that routinely get told. It's not about the strategic positioning and tactical play, because the actual gameplay is pretty shallow. And it's definitely not about the listcrafting to maximize tabletop advantages - nobody wants to talk about that crazy aunt chained to the bed in the basement. No, it's all about the golden BB, the boxcar rout, the snakeeyed hold against all odds. Why, clear as day, I recall the time I one-shotted my opponent's Land Raider on turn 1 and basically won the game right there. That's the essence of Warhammer storytelling.

And the worst part - one-shotting the Land Raider is the *only* thing I remember about that game.

But again, that's because it's the unexpected events that are worth telling. The same goes for any wargame.

Back on topic. If your game is deterministic, then it seems to me that the only place the unexpected can come from is your opponent. The game scenario itself can't introduce anything that both players have to deal with. ...

In tactical games it's pretty rare for an environmental random factor to arise that affects the two sides differently. The main case is sail powered naval warfare, in which the wind strength and power is of great importance in manoeuvring and can shift fairly randomly to the advantage of one side or the other.

Is that the sort of thing you are thinking about?

I know 40K has the "maelstrom" system in which objectives can change randomly every couple of minutes, but this isn't what happens in real battles.

I suppose there are also accidents, such as guns jamming, or things like that.

Wind is one example, yes. I mentioned a couple of others in my post on the previous page. Weather in a land-based game may have an effect too.

They needn't be important, necessarily. Morale seems like the most relevant thing; you can't always really predict exactly when a unit will break or stand.

Anyway, I think I've stated my case. In reply to the OP, I'd be interested in seeing such a set of rules, from the point of gameplay if nothing else.

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
Wind is one example, yes. I mentioned a couple of others in my post on the previous page. Weather in a land-based game may have an effect too.

They needn't be important, necessarily. Morale seems like the most relevant thing; you can't always really predict exactly when a unit will break or stand.

Anyway, I think I've stated my case. In reply to the OP, I'd be interested in seeing such a set of rules, from the point of gameplay if nothing else.

Concerning morale, making it deterministic yet also unpredictable is a matter of bringing in a good many relevant competing factors and combining them. So instead of just rolling under a unit's leadership stat for make or break, you'd sum up leadership stats with unit size, proximity of allies, proximity of enemies, actions of enemies (war cry), actions of allies (rousing speech), distance from friendly table edge, victory conditions earned so far... the more factors the less predictable though of course the more complex to process also... Doable though perhaps not easy enough to be fun. *Sigh*

 SolarCross wrote:
GW knows the secret of commercial success: make sure the dumb people will like it. Smart or dumb everyone wants to win, winning feels good, for dumb people though winning a game through strategy and tactics is an impossibility unless they are playing someone just as dumb and even then it is just winning by accident. Dice give them a chance to win, the more dicey the game, the better the dumbies chances. Dumbies outnumber the smartypants by a long way and are less sensible with their money too. Thus appealing to dumbies is the way to commercial success.

It makes me sad how much I agree with this assessment.

 Dark Severance wrote:
There are a group of people that believe that wargames or games shouldn't be random. Should have controlled environments that rely on the skill of the player. The main issue though that it tends to make them not as "new player" friendly or they aren't fun, unless you happen to be an Engineer... in my opinion.

The other half of the same argument, because I agree with this.

I guess it's what results in my feeling that games should have enough randomness that outcomes aren't predetermined, but enough control that skill is still enough of a determining factor.

Each game type has its place and market, if the market is big enouph for a commercial viability depends on the product.

For a deterministic combat I would use a simple system, for example each unit (be it a character, a tank, a squad, whatever else) has 10 hit points once they attach a unit they get paired off and each does the damage to the other depending the range and type of unit.

For example an infantry unit attacking a light vehicle does 3 points of damage and receives 8 in return, if the unit was in cover it would get only 2, if the infantry unit was AT it would get 5 points of damage or just 1 in cover, but would deal 8 points of damage.

So more or less units can do and get from 0 to 9 damage (leaving instant kill out) depending on how great or poor the units matched are.

One thing that is worth checking out is the game Kriegspiel. It's a really old board game that used no dice, instead opting for the use of cards and an "interaction chart" of sorts.

For attacking and defending each player would be given a set of cards, and would each select one card to use (without showing it to the other player.) Both cards would then be revealed, and there was a comparison chart to refer to which would state the outcome. The strength of each unit involved in the combat was of course also taken into account in this chart.

 Cothonian wrote:
For attacking and defending each player would be given a set of cards, and would each select one card to use (without showing it to the other player.) Both cards would then be revealed, and there was a comparison chart to refer to which would state the outcome. The strength of each unit involved in the combat was of course also taken into account in this chart.

In other words, it's a fancy Rock-Scissors-Paper mechanic. Which is fine, but that is the general model for these sorts of diceless, deterministic things. Depending on the number of cards available, it might even be a RSP-Lizard-Spock variant.

I like the idea of a fancy 'rock, paper scissors'. Plenty of board games already function well on this mechanic, there's no reason it can't be expanded to a wargame. One that comes to mind might be the game of thrones board game. Although some card draws are random, no combat is random and that really heats up the mindgame, mental battle going on. That's only one simple system i can think of.

Of course, some randomness is fun but there is room to greatly diminish that in wargames and move it to a more restricted corner. After all in it's most elemental form, what is more fun... randomly calling heads or tails, or rock paper scissors? I would guess that the majority choose R.P.S., even though it probably actually is pretty close to random, but it is just so much more fun to imagine you know what the other guy is going to do, then exhilarating when you guess correctly. also probably more of a better simulator for actual combat!

It's also worth pointing out here, that even in games like warhammer, a lot of the randomness has been pounded out by competitive lists. I see the same occuring in X-wing, which already has a rock-paper-scissors gambit built in. Game designers will always give 'candy' in the form of dice-altering powers, and as they build up they inevitably lead to combinations that take the randomness out of the game. So it's not either-or, it's really shades of grey we are talking about.

Yeah, at it's core, with random players and selection, it's basically a diceless d3. What's amusing is that some people just suck at winning rounds of RPS against other players. Big time. I've seen people just get destroyed in rounds of RPS, to the point that it's just laughable. They would actually be better off flipping a fair coin or rolling a fair die. But it's still OK.

If I were doing it, RPS core mechanic, with a smaller MOS modifier +/- based on external factors.

I don't know if this helps, but I would consider Stratego to be a deterministic wargame. If results are determined by odds or a sort of rock-paper-scissors method it's more interesting if the "value" of the units involved are unknown or kept secret until they are actually used. Part of strategy becomes luring game units into revealing their strength, then overwhelming them without getting overwhelmed in return.

Stratego is a great strategy game!

I'm not sure it's a wargame, though.

Another pure diceless game is Avalon Hill’s old Diplomacy game. Everyone writes down orders in secret, revealed simultaneously. Who wins a combat is a simple mater of who has more force to bear. Literally no random factors, besides the players. And their sudden, but inevitable betrayal.

Not very complex, and overly simplistic. But proof that fun can be had without randomness.

Made a great play-by-mail game.

I think what's important is that the choices aren't necessarily a simple Paper/Scissors/Stone. Units can have varying factors, inbuilt or situational, that affect their optimum strategy. The players also are at liberty to select a non-optimal strategy because if you don't, your and the enemy's best choices probably change.

It's easier to understand these ideas if you've played or at least read a game that uses them. (Like WarpWar.)

Correct, RPS is really more like the format of play. The difference in a real wargame would be that most of the time, you would know your enemies' options and probably figure in your head their best choice, but there might be several suboptimal or trickier strategies available.

X-wing basically works the same way because when you program a maneuver and do the wrong thing, or have the wrong idea of what your opponent is doing, the differences can be dramatic.

Stratego is a great example. It is kind of difficult to carryover into wargaming however, mostly because wargamers are so attached to their models, and just want to put their models on the table. then you have to figure out how to keep secret which model is which. That's how you get the bluffing mechanic in Stratego.

Infinity probably pulls that off to the greatest extent, as far as i know, because you get to keep a lot of stuff secret about which model is which.

 Stormonu wrote:
I don't know if this helps, but I would consider Stratego to be a deterministic wargame. If results are determined by odds or a sort of rock-paper-scissors method it's more interesting if the "value" of the units involved are unknown or kept secret until they are actually used. Part of strategy becomes luring game units into revealing their strength, then overwhelming them without getting overwhelmed in return.

I think a bluffing mechanic could definitely work, but I found stratego pretty supremely boring.

From what I've read -- not having played Stratego but it sounds very similar to Dover Patrol and other games -- bluff isn't a mechanism in the game rules, it works in the minds of the players. It is an interesting idea, though, to implement bluffing as an actual game rule.

Stratego isn't really what I'd consider a bluffing game. It's an incomplete information game where you're probing for weaknesses, trying to find a weak spot without unduly risking things.

I don't think it would work, bluffing works because there are no rules for it.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Stratego isn't really what I'd consider a bluffing game. It's an incomplete information game where you're probing for weaknesses, trying to find a weak spot without unduly risking things.

It's been awhile since i've played it, i admit. But as i recall bluffing is a factor, it's just not a 'bluffing game', i never said that. Usually if your opponent finds your flag too soon you are done for, so you want to trick them into thinking it is in different places... using bombs and conspicuously not moving some pieces to do so.

There is no 'rule' for bluffing in poker, either, it just happens that it's sometimes a good idea to do so.

I think we use "bluffing" differently.

What you describe is simply exploiting the fog of war mechanics inherent to Stratego's incomplete information.

Poker's bidding rounds allow a pattern of raises and/or calls that can make a weak hand look stronger, or a strong hand look weaker. Like going All-In when the hand doesn't really warrant it.

 Meade wrote:
Stratego is a great example. It is kind of difficult to carryover into wargaming however, mostly because wargamers are so attached to their models, and just want to put their models on the table. then you have to figure out how to keep secret which model is which. That's how you get the bluffing mechanic in Stratego.

That’s a fair point, but it’s something that could be worked around, and maybe even turned in to a feature. The blip system in Space Hulk and Space Crusade had a visual appeal, and it was fun to turn over a token and reveal the Dreadnaught. Consider that same fun of reveal, except it was a modern, high quality miniature that had been really well painted. I could see people who love their minis actually getting a new kind of appeal out of this game, as instead of just placing an army down in deployment, each miniature would get it’s chance to shine as it is placed down on the board. It'd be awesome to place your brilliantly painted dragon right where your opponent never expected

Honestly the one thing that would probably have to change over stratego is the complexity of interactions. The simple ranking system of units only really works when the two sides are fixed and even. In order to have a system where people buy different kinds of units and build distinct armies that work in very different ways the game will need more complex rules. Probably have to give each unit an attack and a defence value (with some units with much stronger attack than defence, and other units having much higher defence than attack). And then have rules for units adjacent to a fight to increase their side’s score by a point, to reward concentration of force and encourage the use of smaller units. And maybe there might also have to be slightly more complex resolution rules, instead of either one or both units being killed, you might need to win by a lot to kill the target outright, in other cases it might be stunned, and would need a follow up attack this turn to kill it.

It'd need some tinkering, of course, but I think that's got the basis for a system with no dice that still felt like a wargame.

FASA's original BattleForce used hidden attack/defense values, somewhat like Stratego. Certain models could have a range of values for the same model (say a value of 3-5 for a tank - with most being a "3" and a singular ace being a "5", or 1-4 for infantry and such). Optionally, the values could degrade or maybe even get stronger depending on the type of unit they fight (AT infantry might get a +2 vs. tanks, for example - while a flamethrower tank may suffer a penalty vs. other tanks but get a bonus against infantry). If you wanted to get even more complex, combat value might degrade with range. You could throw in the normal specials rules or even devise special ones (splitting attack value, getting bonus defense/attack values from nearby units, cancelling opposing abilities, previewing abilities, swapping values with a nearby unit, etc.).

You would then have to probe for the battle/defense value of the units; the strategy would be in the position and use of the units, possibly bluffing or misdirection by the defender. No dice rolls would be involved, it would be pure number to number comparison with absolute or sliding scale results (beat opponent by 2, opponent's attack value drops by 2 or "hits" are lost, etc.).

 sebster wrote:


That’s a fair point, but it’s something that could be worked around, and maybe even turned in to a feature. The blip system in Space Hulk and Space Crusade had a visual appeal, and it was fun to turn over a token and reveal the Dreadnaught. Consider that same fun of reveal, except it was a modern, high quality miniature that had been really well painted. I could see people who love their minis actually getting a new kind of appeal out of this game, as instead of just placing an army down in deployment, each miniature would get it’s chance to shine as it is placed down on the board. It'd be awesome to place your brilliantly painted dragon right where your opponent never expected

Honestly the one thing that would probably have to change over stratego is the complexity of interactions. The simple ranking system of units only really works when the two sides are fixed and even. In order to have a system where people buy different kinds of units and build distinct armies that work in very different ways the game will need more complex rules. Probably have to give each unit an attack and a defence value (with some units with much stronger attack than defence, and other units having much higher defence than attack). And then have rules for units adjacent to a fight to increase their side’s score by a point, to reward concentration of force and encourage the use of smaller units. And maybe there might also have to be slightly more complex resolution rules, instead of either one or both units being killed, you might need to win by a lot to kill the target outright, in other cases it might be stunned, and would need a follow up attack this turn to kill it.

It'd need some tinkering, of course, but I think that's got the basis for a system with no dice that still felt like a wargame.

I think as long as the miniatures have at least some good chunk of table time I think. It certainly beats some games of 40k I've had that just seem like work of putting miniatures on the table, rolling a bucket of dice, then taking them off

No need to design a wargame version of stratego, i think, just use it as inspiration. I think a stratego-like wargame would be better suited to a mass battle game at 15mm or smaller scale. Something where you have a lot of units in a fog of war type situation and they are coming in contact with each other. But there's no reason they can't function like a normal wargame, with statlines and everything. The statlines could be modified by position, or other factors like being inside arcs of fire. then when they fight you just compare the stats to see who wins.

For a skirmish wargame i think rock paper scissors method is better. Have statlines and everything, but when it comes time to fight have some secret cards (or a dial) that represents combinations of 'actions' you can take, like thrust, shield up, parry, or whatnot. and have those actions be modified by the weapon you are using, and statlines of the units. For example if they both thrust the quicker one would win, when they are simultaneously revealed.

You can do the same for ranged combat, actions like 'burst', 'aim', 'sustained fire', 'duck'. That has the immediate issue of just being over too quickly, however. But there's got to be a clever way of doing it.