Designing/modifying wargames for more than 2 players

[Hupp n at em]

Having just attended Little Wars this past weekend, my gaming thoughts have been somewhat fixated on "multiplayer" (ie more than 2 participants) miniature wargames, and how best to reduce players sitting around and waiting on their activation. I participated in a 4-player game of Congo this weekend and found the activation card mechanic to be a pretty good way of keeping everyone involved, between the decisions about which cards to pick, the order to play them in, and the presence of opposed rolls in the combat system. 

So I pose the question to LAF - what mechanics or activation methods have you used or been a participant in that you've enjoyed and found to work? 

[Elbows]

Lots of good ways to involve multiple people (though as the number goes up...the waiting will happen with most rule sets).

I use card activation for Shoot N' Skedaddle (each character has two activation cards - these are all shuffled each turn, etc.).  You can do chips/tokens/etc. in a cup, with a more open version (i.e. "You draw a blue chip...someone on team Blue can activate a unit", etc.).  We've modified 2nd ed. 40K to do just this, placing a token for each unit in the game in a cup (adding additional tokens to the side with a higher strategy rating).  Draw a chip, and keep drawing until an opposing colour is drawn.  The added benefit here is that 40K is a terrible game for two players, let alone three -sitting out for two turns while both enemy armies chop you to bits?  No thanks!  With the tokens even three disparate armies can engage each other with only the occasional swing.

Some games like Battle Lore/Memoir 44/Great War use a deck of command cards which allow only a small portion of one side to activate --- but the player is given some flexibility in which of his 3-5 cards he wishes to play that turn, etc.

Games like Lion Rampant go another route, requiring all units to pass an "orders test" before activating - meaning that one army's turn may only be perhaps 1-3 units, instead of all 7-8.  However it does occasionally allow for a lucky turn of dice rolling, allowing an entire army to activate.  Once a unit fails an orders test, the opposing player begins etc.

A few other games have a method whereby one side activates and begins their turn - continuing until they fail X, Y or Z or are otherwise countered.  So one army might move until a unit is pinned by gunfire, or a unit steps on a landmine, or a unit fails a morale test ---- then the opposing side begins.

Of all of these, I think for skirmish level or small unit actions, I prefer cards or tokens.  You get the joy of occasionally getting lucky and running 2-3-4-5 units in a row, but you don't have to sit there for an hour while 15 units pound you into dust and your army stands patiently, taking it. 

[warrenpeace]

I prefer IGO/UGO for big games with 6 or more players. I think differing player abilities and personalities provide enough chaos without the need to use card draws or chit pulls or other methods of generating chaos in the order of activation of units. For games with 5 or fewer players I'm OK with card draw or other activation techniques, provided that multiple players can react, such as with opportunity fire, opportunity card plays against the active player, and with opposed rolls for combat resolution. Need to keep as many players engaged as possible as much of the time as possible.

[Hobgoblin]

One observation on Lion and Dragon Rampant: those work really well for multi-player games, not just because turns are often very short, but because each unit gets a single action that is concluded there and then. So, if a unit charges, it fights immediately - which involves an opposing player. Games where all or several units move, then shoot or fight or move again leave players out for much longer.

Song of Blades and Heroes works very well with several players, so long as the forces are relatively small (around five miniatures per player is best). As with Dragon Rampant, you've got that "sudden death" aspect to turns, so action moves round the table very quickly.

[dbsubashi]

I have played a lot of 6-8 DR games. To keep things up to speed, I issued each player on one side a plastic goblet-I bought a dozen off Amazon for $12.99. When a player is done with his turn, he passes the goblet to his opposite number. This way you can instantly see if the turn is ended (all goblets on the other side of the table) or if someone is still playing (and can easily know if the turn is still going/ask that player if they are finished!) The goblets make it easy to keep the players on task. They also cut down on the "creeping dread" of turns taking too long. If you know Joe at the end of the table is still playing, people are much more forgiving. And by easily indentifying the person(s) you are waiting on, everyone is more willing to ask them if they are done yet. One of the reasons multiplayers games seem to take longer than they should is everyone wants to be seen as polite, and not bother their friend with questions. If Joe has his goblet and is rolling dice, well, play on then! If he has a goblt and is checking his phone, time to ask him to pass the cup!

And there is nothing like the dramatic slam of a goblet passing when you fail your first activation!

[Mindenbrush]

With card activation games I try to
A) Start the opponents off quite close together so they don't spend half the game maneuvering.
B) Keep the next player aware that his card is coming up next.
C) Keep the players focused with a bit of banter.
D) Have no more than 6 players as any excess of that allows the non-active players to wander.