Article: Thoughts on the Frostgrave Campaign System

[Calmdown]

Hot on the heels of our battle report, today we have an article on the Frostgrave campaign system. This one unfortunately not so positive

Enjoy and please share your thoughts!

http://www.bad-karma.net/some-thoughts-on-frostgrave-mostly-the-campaign-system/

[DancesWithHippos]

Good read. How much of this do you think could just be inexperience with the system? What I mean by that is maybe players are trying to play Mordheim with Frostgrave rules, carrying over tactics and strategies from more familiar games might skewer the intended experience. I haven't gotten my book yet and I don't play any other campaign skirmish games so I'm wondering if it will have a different feel to me because of my lack of experience in this niche.

[Calmdown]

Good question. I don't think any of the issues are really anything to do with how we're playing the game in terms of "right" or "wrong", they're simply a result of the mechanics. If you roll a few 20s in a row and crush the enemy warband and end up with 6 treasure counters, then roll well on the treasure table, your warband is going to continually crush anyone else who hasn't gotten enough to be able to match you. Similarly, if you're playing vs experienced gamers who see things like opportunities to win 6-0 rather than simply accepting a 4-2, and they take those opportunities, then the snowballing is going to happen. However the snowballing happens, whether it happens because of luck, player experience or otherwise, it can and will happen regularly just because of the way the game works. If you're OK with a "campaign" being 3-4 games that you play across a day or maybe a weekend, then that's probably OK. But if you want to run an awesome campaign where you see your Wizards develop to very high levels and have great stories to tell (which is the draw of a game like this imho - the character development is the thing you want to see), you need to make changes to the way things work. No one is going to have fun in a campaign where one Wizard wins every game because he keeps rolling great treasures, another Wizard gets constantly beaten because he died to a couple of unlucky rolls, etc. It's no fun to demolish someone without contest and it's no fun to be on the receiving end of it either.

As I mentioned in the article, and in reference to your "intended experience" comment, I think you're right - Frostgrave feels more like it was written as an RPG (which are NEVER balanced fairly, you do that yourself as a GM and as a player) designed for you to make your own. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that - it would make for a great RPG-Tabletop hybrid game with a GM running a campaign for a group of players as much as it will make for a great tabletop game if you houserule it. My only bit of sad comes from the fact that I was expecting a tabletop wargame with character development and didn't get one. I know many other people were expecting the same. So I suppose that in that regard I can't really fault Frostgrave for being a good framework, I just wish it had been a bit more obvious as to what it wasnt before I got my hopes up so much.

[DancesWithHippos]

I see. Thanks for your insight. Once I get my hands on it I'll have to be on the look out for those issues. It sounds like one warband seizing the momentum will have far reaching consequences.

[Magos Kasen]

Interesting to read your thoughts, and a little concerning. I'll have to wait until I can play some myself, but in the interim - a lot of your problems seemed to come from strings of good rolls making things lopsided - in your battle report, your hound kills four guys in a row, all (I believe) the results of rolling very high. Similarly, I'm guessing the guy who got 1000 gold after a game must have rolled pretty well for all the relevant rolls. Is this a factor? Maybe the use of a D20 for all rolls, rather than, say, multiple D6, creates a problem for probabilities.

[Calmdown]

Interesting to read your thoughts, and a little concerning. I'll have to wait until I can play some myself, but in the interim - a lot of your problems seemed to come from strings of good rolls making things lopsided - in your battle report, your hound kills four guys in a row, all (I believe) the results of rolling very high. Similarly, I'm guessing the guy who got 1000 gold after a game must have rolled pretty well for all the relevant rolls. Is this a factor? Maybe the use of a D20 for all rolls, rather than, say, multiple D6, creates a problem for probabilities.

D20s do make it very swingy (and I mentioned this in my battle report). That's just the way it is though. I hate houseruling at the best of times, so I think that even considering a change of core mechanics is a bad idea. Swingy luck is definitely one way a game can end badly, but I actually avoided discussing that in the article because the game's core mechanics were not what I consider to be at fault for the campaign system issues. Even if you used D6s and reduced the variance somehow, that would not remove the luck factor (as we all well know from other games!) and additionally would not solve the problem of snowballing if someone did get ahead; it would simply mean that the snowballing would be less likely to come from luck and more likely to come from another source.

Also no, those games weren't *just* a result of rolling very high. That one was (but that game was against the other player who finished at level 12, and that game only ended 4-2 so wasn't actually a crushing victory anyway). Dave's other crushing defeats were nothing to do with swingy luck, neither were mine. My game against Iain where I won 4-2 was a very good example of a snowballed Wizard in action; Iain knew he could only hope for 2 treasure counters, so he went for 2 and got them whilst I grabbed 4, but that in itself doesn't help the longterm health of a campaign as I'm *still* ahead on treasure counters and he's *still* behind and so though the snowball may be slower, it's still there. Every game he plays against me at that point is just trying to grab 2 counters and run which isn't fun for him or me.

Please don't let this put you off or concern you though, that isn't my intention. I'm a bit disappointed overall, sure, but the game premise is great and the game is a lot of fun to play when you're not suffering snowball-related issues. A few houserules, even a few that may come to be community accepted rules, and all of those problems will go away leaving nothing but awesomeness!

[affun]

Very interesting read.
One thing I would consider, is something akin to reducing gold gains, as they indeed seem pretty high. But that might only serve to hamstring people allready behind even further? Grabbing 1000 gold from a game seems excessive.
But really - I don't want to fiddle with house rules when I haven't played the game. It's very interesting to read some thoughts, and I am quite curious to the "expanded" system you mention that your friend is writing up. There's a lot of things that could be explored with that.

Interesting to read your thoughts, and a little concerning. I'll have to wait until I can play some myself, but in the interim - a lot of your problems seemed to come from strings of good rolls making things lopsided - in your battle report, your hound kills four guys in a row, all (I believe) the results of rolling very high. Similarly, I'm guessing the guy who got 1000 gold after a game must have rolled pretty well for all the relevant rolls. Is this a factor? Maybe the use of a D20 for all rolls, rather than, say, multiple D6, creates a problem for probabilities.

Yeah, I've been thinking about this as well. The variance on a single d20 roll is pretty crazy, which can be both a good and a bad thing. I need to play the game before I feel like commenting on that further, though.

[Calmdown]

Very interesting read.
One thing I would consider, is something akin to reducing gold gains, as they indeed seem pretty high. But that might only serve to hamstring people allready behind even further? Grabbing 1000 gold from a game seems excessive.

Yep. Also just reducing the amount of treasure counters per game, too. Reducing max rewards per game means that a crushing defeat (because they will always happen no matter what you do) will snowball things less. But again, these things may not be necessary with time limits on scenarios - moving with treasure is SO slow that it'll be very difficult to get a ton of treasure off the board with that rules change anyway, and that might actually be the golden fix to most of these issues.

Yeah, I've been thinking about this as well. The variance on a single d20 roll is pretty crazy, which can be both a good and a bad thing. I need to play the game before I feel like commenting on that further, though.

It is a thing, but no dice system is perfect. There is always variance and it will always annoy you because that's how humans perceive luck. Better to fix the results of bad luck to stop them from ruining your game/day/weekend/campaign rather than try to come up with a perfect dice system, because frankly there isn't one!

[joe5mc]

Hey Calmdown,

Thanks for posting your thoughts on the game and the campaign system. I’m sorry you’ve seen such an imbalance develop in your first few games. It’s not an issue that came up much in my games or among the playtesting group, but different styles of play, different board sizes, and different combinations of wizards facing each other can lead to some very different results.

I am very interested in hearing your thoughts on the way the game could be improved. I’m not saying I agree with all of them, but I’m listening. I’ll be interested to see what others say as well.  I am not vain enough to believe I have invented the perfect game, and if others can offers suggestions on how it can be improved, I will happily consider them.

In the end, you and your gaming buddies should make any changes to the game that you think necessary, or that makes the game more enjoyable for you. The campaign game was always intended to have strong narrative overtones, and scenario conditions can and should be used to help balance games that look like they might otherwise be uneven. Maybe, if your wizard is getting too powerful, the other two guys should plan an ambush in a three-player game – Frostgrave is a tough place, and if you’ve got loot, others are going to want it.

[JamWarrior]

My experience (from admittedly  just a single game) was that the big d20 variance meant anyone had a decent shot of killing anyone else no matter the relative power levels.

It's definitely more of an RPG/simulation type system than it is a balanced tourney one.  Part of the fun of the wild luck is that you might get the dizzying highs along with the down lows.

[Calmdown]

My experience (from admittedly  just a single game) was that the big d20 variance meant anyone had a decent shot of killing anyone else no matter the relative power levels.

That's very true. Though when variance starts to kick in, you start to see what a real big difference there is between Thugs and Archers, and Barbarians and Marksmen. Or Wizards that have a Staff of Power +3 and a couple of extra levels in a spell and a couple of extra hp, and ones who don't. Or a warband that's rolled a few more treasure rolls and is laden with potions. The small incremental advantages add up, and when your Wizard is failing spells or needing to empower to cast whilst the enemy wizard is sailing through all of his spell casts it's not much fun to sit there and watch your warband slowly melt, nor is it fun to have such a big advantage that you might as well not be playing. And bare in mind, we observed this level of discrepancy after just 2 games in one case.

It's definitely more of an RPG/simulation type system than it is a balanced tourney one.  Part of the fun of the wild luck is that you might get the dizzying highs along with the down lows.

That's a fallacy that I've come across a number of times over the years. Balance isn't just something for tournament gamers. No one wants to sit there whilst they get pummeled and can't do anything about it, casual or otherwise.

[Sir_Theo]

Interesting article Calm down.  I don't hold the same opinion on house ruling as you do but you make some interesting suggestions for altering the campaign rules! 

One question, not clear from your reports. Were you playing with wandering monsters?

[Calmdown]

One question, not clear from your reports. Were you playing with wandering monsters?

We were using them, yes, although in the game I wrote about in the battle report I don't think we had any spawn. We also played the Mausoleum, which is a constant Skeleton-spawner. As the snowballing warband, I was able to kill the skeletons whilst also wiping Aaron's warband in 5 turns - that's how far ahead I was after just 2 games. I know in Dave's game vs Aaron Dave had a horde of giant rats to contend with that he had to fight off, too.


Also relevant, I'll copy a bit from Facebook here - someone said to me "random encounters balance warbands that are too far ahead".

Me:

That's not the point. Random encounters affect both people equally in theory. But the better warband is more equipped to deal with a random encounter turning up, for example, right next to their guys (eg: Dave had a swarm of rats turn up right next to his guys and start killing them yesterday; he still wiped Aaron off the table because he had spare capacity) - if that happens to the lower level warband, they're in deeper trouble because they're now fighting NPCs AND the enemy warband that they were already going to struggle with. So no, random encounters aren't a balancing factor.

Dave:

Exactly that happened in the third game when I already had level/equipment advantage over Iain when both a wraith and two wolves came on his side. The wolves directly behind him. He had to send 3 people to fight them off so his wizard was ok. And with no magic weapons he had to basically feed his warband to the wraith to get the treasure off the table and when he was stuck fighting, I killed both the wraith and the guy fending him off with an elemental ball cast into them!


Wandering monsters are awesome and one of the best things about Frostgrave! But they certainly don't help balance or not balance anything. The fickle buggers

[MacavityandMycroft]

I am not anywhere close to an expert in this game, having just received my copy and played a short test game against myself.

However, I do have questions about your article that I would love answered:

1) How many players in the campaign?  Learning on reading the rules that it is "open-ended" and/or removes the most powerful wizards on a regular basis, I assumed the design was hoping for larger numbers of 'bands.  Are you playing with Transendence?

2) I don't have my book in front of me, but the XP for kills is interesting.  Did you hit any scenarios with location or treasure bonuses?  Would you suggest leaving XP bonuses for scenario specific kills (like a worm) as similar to entering the null magic tower while leaving out generic kill points?

3) I think your wizards are supposed to be squishy and powerful, very happy to hear they can die easily if exposed.  That's a plus for me! (not a question, sorry!)

4) Any Sigilists?  I thought the "extra money and XP while useless in battle" was an interesting route.  Had considered one with a speedy band as flat out treasure hunters.

[JamWarrior]

The game is possibly not very suited as stands for a strict 'everyone plays everyone in order' type of campaign.  But that's okay if that isn't what it is trying to be.

The very existence of the Absorb Knowledge spell shows that wizard level mismatches are an expected feature of the game as the spell serves no purpose other than to give you a level boost over your opponent at the cost of less spell options in game.

If there's a very large power mismatch between the bands of two players I think you need to accept that they probably shouldn't be playing a straight game if you want a balanced match.  They either need to find their own narrative to mess with the setup and give the underdog an advantage, or one or both need to start new secondary bands.