Special Abilities versus Standard Rules

News from the Rear

As my gaming buddy has been traveling, and Easter forced us to take a break, I have been mostly learning new rules, thinking about my own game designs, and playing some solo games. Playing board games online over Vassal has kind of cooled off. I think everyone had such a system shock from concentrated BattleLore gaming that it has affected the other online tournaments. Of the players in the BattleLore tournament with me some are in a Command and Colors: Napoleonics tournament (I think there were two running at the same time), a Samurai Battles tournament, and possibly a Battle Cry tournament. We are trying to get a second BattleLore tournament going, but it has not made yet. I have so many things on my plate that I may just drop my name from the list.

So what have I been doing? Reading a lot of forums and Yahoo groups, and generally wasting time. Oh, and trying to figure out what makes Munchkin such a wildly successful game. It is not the puns and inside humor. It is … well, that is what this blog post is about. Not all about Munchkin, but about a trend in game designs.

In the Beginning …

If you look at 'Old School' rules – and I am talking Featherstone, Grant, Bath, and Lawson here – you will find very generic mechanics. Both sides basically fight the same, or rather the units types on each side fight the same. Grenadiers fight like 'Grenadiers', whether Austrian or Prussian. The rules were more about unit types and morale than about who they were fighting for. The difference between two sides were in the composition of the armies … well unless one of those sides were British of course. Then the British would have a +1 (in everything).

… and Then There Were …

Next came 'National Characteristics'. This is what happens when you start adding those "+1 because they are British" rules. It was also how game designers started adding 'period flavor'. I really got started with a set of rules from this era. It was called Column, Line, and Square and it was a tome on Napoleonics wargaming that still had Old School elements – artillery bounce sticks, canister patterns, and burst templates – but included loads of rules on National Characteristics (which, if I recall correctly, was what the rules section was called). Militia Light Cavalry with lances were poor troops, but Cossacks, well that is a different story.

In the end, what all of these National Characteristics did was to add more exceptions to the rules, and almost always in the form of a die roll modifier that you had to remember. I hesitate to use the word complexity – a term which is over-used on the forums – as there is really nothing hard to understand about the resulting rules. It just gets harder to memorize all of the exceptions and all those modifiers tend to make combat resolution take longer.

Don't get me wrong, I revelled in the detail when I was young. Something about the way young boy's mind work, I suppose, but now that I am older, I find that those details are annoying and bothersome – probably because I cannot always remember them.

Today, you see the same sort of rules, only now they are called 'faction rules' or 'special unit abilities'. I think this is one of the reasons I gave up on Flames of War; you had to remember which units had the special traits, find the rules for it, and remember how to apply it correctly. You could not simply play the rules. Contrast that to Memoir '44 – at least the base game¹ – where infantry is infantry. You roll 3, 2, or 1 battle die based on the range to the target. Your chance of hitting is built into the die itself. Simple and clear.

So, if you have been following for a while you might be thinking "but what about Saga?" I think Don said it best after our first game: the great thing about Saga is that the special rules are all written right there on the battle board. Once you memorize the basics, all the special stuff is easily accessible.

Which Brings us to Munchkin

So, how does my playing Munchkin bring all of this on. Well Munchkin has few basic rules. Basically five small pages in large type, and that is including the puns and jokes. (Yes, even the rules have puns and jokes in them.) Once you learn those rules, you are set. If you buy another base set – Munchkin Fu for martial arts action, Star Munchkin for science fiction action, etc. – you might learn an additional rule or two, but the core rules are exactly the same. Where the differences lie, and why you buy the expansions, are in the special rules embedded in the cards.

But, just as with Saga, it is finding a set of abilities, in combination with a move or an attack, that sets the players apart. The ability to envision a combination three moves ahead, and plan for pulling it off, or recognizing when the stars align and the time is ripe, is how you tend to play. In a way it reminds me a little of chess, when I was a kid. You read books about chess moves, openings, gambits; really about patterns to recognize. When the pattern emerged, there was a series of moves to make to exploit that pattern. Of course, it is a little more complex than that (and it shows you why I was never a great chess player), but that was the basic idea behind being a better chess player when you were starting out. But it was really about memorization of patterns.

As I get older, and my memory goes, I cannot hold as many rules in my head and I cannot remember as manner patterns to exploit. But, I definitely like it when my core rules are simple, and my special rules are spelled out on little cards in front of me. How about you?

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¹ Even Memoir '44 has started going this route. The Japanese have their special rules, as do the British, and then there are Elites, Ski troops, snipers, etc. Of course, you don't have to add all of that at once and there are loads of scenario to play that just use the basics.