Design modalities

A game from Tim "Herr Niemand" Taylor

Design modalities

Messagede Arnauld » Dim Mar 01, 2009 11:20 pm

A game designer cannot help but bring all of his personal conceits and goals into his design. Games are a reflection of their designer.

To the Last Man! -- the Great War in the West has been refined and redesigned many times over the last 17 years. And yet the vision of what I wanted to create never faded from view. I'd like to discuss this a bit.

First, I have a bit of a confession to make. I am a roleplayer and Gamemaster -- have been since 1974.

Wargamers often make fun of roleplayers, which is a shame, really. See, wargamers often are roleplayers themselves -- although they would never admit it. In their private moments they dream of what it would be like to command Panthers on the Russian Front, or to get lost right along with Ney on his way to Waterloo, and so on.

It is for these dreamers that I designed To the Last Man!

I wanted a game where players could allow their imaginations to run wild.

I wanted TTLM! to tell a story -- the story of World War 1 as the players make it.

As the Germans, you don't want to invade Belgium? Cool!

As the French, you do want to invade Belgium? Cool!

As the UK, you want to build up masses of tanks until the Hun can't stop you? Cool!

To my knowledge no other WW1 game gives the players this kind of freedom. No other game so extensively explores all the "What ifs?" of WW1. Yet I also wanted to reflect history, if that's what the players want.


CREATING THE STORY OF WORLD WAR 1


While playing later versions of this game with playtesters, we would discuss the battlefield events. Which generals got medals and which got kicked upstairs. What the newspapers at home have to say. Events on the political scene. How the arts are co-opted by military leaders into just another form of propaganda. And on and on.

These discussions formed a good part of the fun. We were roleplaying WW1 at the grand strategic level. In a very real way, I see TTLM! as a WW1 RPG.

Want an example? Cool!

My good friend Christine is a professor at Columbia University. When last she visited me, I talked her into playing TTLM! as an historical roleplaying experience. She would never have agreed to play a wargame, but watching history unfold was a different story!

Now, you need to know that Christine is not a gamer, per se, but she is willing to play games that are not too complex. For instance, she has played Tempus, Betrayal at House on the Hill, and TTLM!

It took about half an hour to get her up-to-speed on the rules, then we set up the historical 1914 scenario. She played the Entente and I played the Germans. Part way through the first turn she said she understood more about WW1 from playing my little game than all the histories she had read! High praise, indeed!

As the Belgian forts fell and terrible battles raged along the frontiers of France, we spoke about the implications of our actions. In the Sedan area, a great battle resulted in huge losses for both of us. If I remember correctly, I lost 4 and she lost 3. After satifying our losses, she was curious how many casualties that might represent.

TT: "At this time in the war, each impulse represents a few days, maybe half a week. During those three days, in just this one battle, French casualties were 150,000 killed. German casualties were 200,000."

She just stared at me in utter horror.

C: "We suffered 350,000 casualties in one battle?!"

TT: "Yep. Pretty amazing, isn't it?"

C: "I surrender!"

TT: "What? We've only just started!"

C: "The Entente surrenders! Nothing is worth that kind of loss of life!"

TTLM! accommodates stopping play at any time via surrender or armistice mechanisms. Quitting the game at that precise moment then resulted in a Stalemate and we discussed the peace negotiations. Afterwards, we talked about the future of the 20th century without WW1 killing off an entire generation of European men. We thought the Aftermath for this outcome might go something like this:

"The War ends within 6 weeks and with (comparatively) few casualties. Europe's artistic youth are not slaughtered en masse, so European culture continues to be pre-eminent and positivist (e.g., no Dada, no Bauhaus). Belgium is now part of the German economic sphere of influence. The 1914 Peace of Paris is reasonably lenient, although there are a few minor border alterations. Both UK, France, & Russia must pay large war indemnities which cause world markets to crash by 1925. All empires, UK, German, Austro-Hungarian, Russian, and Ottoman survive the war, so the totalitarian dictatorships of the 20s, 30s and 40s do not arise (no Soviet Union, no Fascist Italy, and no Nazi Germany). The League of Nations is not created. UK and France do not gain territorial mandates in the Middle East. Continued Ottoman control (and no 1917 Balfour agreement) means no western-leaning Israeli state will be created later in the century. European power and world control remain undiminished. The US remains a minor military power."

That was a roleplaying session, not a wargame in the traditional sense! We talked about playing the game more than actually playing it. We revelled in the Story portrayed by our play.

Designing TTLM! with that story-telling RPG angle in mind also makes the game a very good tool for teaching the military history of World War 1. Since I have used the game to teach teenagers about WW1, I can definitely see TTLM! being used in a classroom setting.

TT
02/22/09
Run ! The Devil is coming !
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