Skirmish style guide

War is the continuation of plot by other means

Carl von Clausewitz

Overview

Skirmishes - which includes battles, quests, and encounters - are an essential part of Empire. Although most fights take place away from the safety of Anvil, the consequences of conflict and war are critical for the economics and politics that takes place on the field. As they are a key part of the game for many of our players, we need to aim to deliver the best possible experience for those players, in a style consistent with the remainder of the game. This page lays out our design goals for achieving this.

Vision

We want all the encounters we run through the Sentinel Gate to be about roleplaying, the game world, the plot and the action. Regardless of the size, they should be a chance for a player to roleplay as their character going into battle, on mysterious journeys, or on a daring missions. They are there to provide epic roleplaying moments, whether characters are alone or part of a large force of heroes fighting against the odds.

Empire is intended to be a sandbox game - a world the players can observe and explore, can influence and control through a combination of their hard skills, their character’s skills and most importantly through the choices they make. The plots and encounters we run are not about telling stories, rather they should create opportunities for players to take advantage of new developments. They should create moments where player action will create stories that perpetuate in the game world, and be remembered in the community for years to come. Each moment is a crucible for character stories to emerge from, they are not a war or action story in and of themselves.

Battles mustn't be just an opportunity for fighting and engaging in combat. That is not compatible with the approach above. Because the actions of the players are what our game is about, we have to deliver a setting where the choices the characters make trump all other considerations, we can't have those choices constrained or overridden by our writers or our referees. At no point should we be stopping players from influencing the game. Skills, combat and roleplay need to be the critical elements that determine what happens in a battle, because they are the levers with which players, and their characters, can alter the game world. That experience - of altering the game world through your actions - is what our game is about.

Hard Choices

Combat should be all about characters making hard choices. Rather than a Hollywood style environment where the point of the fight is to give the character the opportunity to demonstrate their heroism, our fights should be awkward bloody affairs where the players face difficult choices. When to fight, when to give ground, when to retreat, when to talk, should all be valid choices that the characters can make.

To ensure that those decisions remain meaningful we must have the courage of our convictions and follow through on our own plot briefs. If the players have thrown extra resources and people at an encounter, then they should find that those resources allow them to win that fight more easily. If we re-balance a fight to compensate for their efforts, then we nullify the impact of those efforts, effectively rendering their choices moot. Likewise, if the players have not provided the skill, strength, or resources to win a battle, then they must suffer the consequences accordingly.

Running a game with hard choices for characters is not easy. Sometimes that will mean that players will experience an unusually easy battle - because of their own character actions. Sometimes it will be exceptionally difficult. Neither is popular with players at the moment it happens - nobody likes to lose or to win easily for that matter. Nobody should be writing a battle or a quest that aims to produce high casualties or a total wipe but it is critical to the style of the game we want that if the players mess up then they should suffer the natural consequences of their actions.

Peer vs Peer

The ideal style of combat is one that feels structurally similar to a PvP fight. The players should feel like their opponents are characters who are operating on a similar set of rules (albeit not identical) to themselves. While we can't control the numbers of volunteers that we have we should aim to minimize respawning and instead use healing magic, herbs and potions, to make a fight last longer.

Individual battle briefs will of course vary, but most opponents that players face should feel like capable opponents, they should not be mooks to be waded through, but nor should they be death knights who can wade through the players. Mooks make poor opponents for PCs; expensive abilities like venom, weakness, impale, strikedown and shatter are useless against an opponent that is quickly dispatched by normal blows, so generally speaking mooks rob the players of a worthy opponent they can feel like a hero when they fight and they rob them of difficult choices to make (like should I use this heroic attack now?).

On the other hand a Death Knight makes the players feel like mooks. As they fall like chaff before the Death Knight's mighty blows, the characters significance in the setting is reduced. Most of their special abilities are inherently useless against a monstrous opponent and by definition a Death Knight requires hundreds of blows to drop, if it can be dropped at all. Like fighting mooks, this makes the actions of the players meaningless as they lack decisions to make and their actions become insignificant.

The ideal opponents are the players peers on the other side. Elite combatants with abilities and skills similar to the player base and with attitudes and approaches to match. They should make use of intelligent plans, strategies and tactics. When the players make a mistake they should look to exploit it. We don't want to try our hardest to outwit the players, we will always be armed with more intelligence than them, but we do want to give them a fight that challenges their abilities as commanders as well as warriors.

Fight! Fight! Fight!

We want to have as many battles, skirmishes and quests taking place as we can realistically support. It's very hard to have too much plot in a game - and by extension it is very hard to have too many fights. This is especially true in Empire where the fights are "opt-in". We want to give those players who want a fight as many opportunities to have one as we can manage.

Unfortunately there is a trade-off between the quality of a fight, how enjoyable it is for all concerned and how well written and resourced it is. The more fights we do, the less time we can put into making each one a good quality encounter. This is a delicate balancing act - but it is also one where we improve the overall position over time. If plot is written sooner then we can roll out more high quality encounters as organization improves.

The ideal balance is that every encounter does not need to be a work of art - but that we should be pleased that every encounter we do is credible and enjoyable for all involved. Provided we are reliably managing that as a minimum then we should keep pushing to do more.

Different Sides, Same Setting

The monsters categorically do not have to follow the same rules as the players. That idea is already inherent in the definition of monstrous creatures, something the players cannot field. More critically, the monsters simply do not need to operate using the exact same skills and abilities that the players have. They can have unusual abilities, or use existing abilities in unique ways. They may even be able to do things the players cannot.

That said, there are two major caveats. The monsters must use the same call system and rules framework as the players. For instance, it is a fundamental design consideration that in Empire there are no resists, no character who would normally be affected by something can "resist" it. The bestiary might contain a unit of monsters that gains more than 3 hits from wearing medium armour - but it will never allow them to use medium armour to "resist" the Impale call.

The other issue is that the abilities of the monsters must reflect the setting. Casting a high level ritual is expensive and difficult in Empire, so it should be expensive and difficult for their orc opponents. Monsters on a battlefield should be the peers of the Imperials and their abilities, skills and powers should reflect that.

If a writer wants to create a new bestiary entry that departs from the rules then it should be designed to capture the flavour of the creature, not to circumvent the limitations that the rules impose and they should make sure they check it carefully with the ref team first.

Fun For Everyone

It is blatantly obvious that battles, skirmishes, and quests should be fun for the players. Writers and skirmish organizers should keep in mind however that skirmishes should be just as much fun for those playing their opponents. There are a great many reasons for this:

• Crew retention: - if crew are enjoying what they are doing they will come back.
• Player retention: - if good crew are enjoying themselves, then players will find it more fun to interact with them.
• Part of the game: - players have to come and monster the big battle if they want to play the other one. We want that experience to be as cool as possible because it is part of their event.

Monstering is not a chore to be endured, it should be part of the game they have paid to enjoy. It's our job to make it fun.

It is important to appreciate that "fun" means being able to roleplay a cool, interesting, enjoyable role, one with some basic characterisation and purpose. It means feeling like you are a challenge for the players and giving roleplayers something that they can get their teeth into to portray. It categorically does not mean lording it over the PCs or PC body counts. There are some roleplayers who enjoy one or both of these activities, but that isn't the fun we are interested in offering.

In practical terms this means trying as far as possible to avoid roles such as playing dead bodies, monsters that cannot speak, not having any background or 'charge the enemy for no reason' briefs. Roles don't have to demand an Oscar winning performance but should give those who want to roleplay as they fight something to work with. The battlefield should feel like an environment filled with characters.