John Kantor sent this… If you don't proved a well-fleshed out matrix, then the players will call on whatever background and influences they are familiar with. And they will not be subtle about it. Are you prepared for players to be arguing to put into play Tarzan, Sheena, "She" (who must be obeyed), allied tribesmen, undead temple guardians, air support from a friendly balloon/zeppelin, herds of stampeding dinosaurs, etc. - all simultaneously? From Matt John, Thanks again for your input. You've given me some things to think about. I suspect that the players in the game will be rather unimaginative at first and will mostly want to argue for advantages under the standard rules, stuff like extra moves or better chances at firing. My plan was to have figures for a few colorful characters and animals that can be put into play, and to prompt the plays to use a little imagination. Once activated by an argument they would be run by the player until killed, or someone uses an argument to get rid of them. Some crazy stuff would be in line with the atmosphere of the game. Sort of a King Solomon's Mines storyline. I figured the really crazy stuff would be weeded out because either: 1. The arguments would be ruled very weak and therefore unlikely to occur, especially if targeted at an opponent who could easily make a strong argument why it couldn't happen -OR- 2. Since there would be no figure to move around the event would just happen and then we'd move on, it wouldn't take over the game. From Chris We will have to do a military campaign MG here on the list so you can see how the Classical MG handles such things. After you get you players okay with the idea that they can "make up" things. You might want to try them on a Classical MG. Maybe a military campaign (play one in a day) or a murder mystery (I had great success with this at Gen Con this year). What ever you do though, I'm glad you're here. WELCOME!!! From Matt Chis, Yes, the "Unexpected Events" in your PBOM rules are pretty much what I have in mind. A military campaign would be cool. I did read about the one set in Egypt in the newsletter on Magweb.com. This is where I hope to eventually get with my club if things go well. Our club has tried many campaigns using standard rules sets and they inevitably bog down for a variety of reasons - they take too long, someone doesn't show up, a player starts losing and suddenly starts losing interest. It seems to me that the MG approach would solve many of our problems. I think the club would have fun with a PBEM matrix game in which the conflicts are resolved using MG rules, but occasionally an interesting battle could be played out using standard miniatures rules (with or without MG elements). If I can get comfortable with the MG thing I can also imagine using it with my History Club at the school where I teach. MGs would be a natural for covering topics like exploring the new world and establishing colonies. The more a student has learned the better he/she would be able to make effective arguments. Anyway, that's what's in my head at the moment. Thanks you for the welcome, and go ahead and use anything from my message in your newsletter. John Kantor writes Never underestimate your players. Once they grasp the concept, they won't limit their arguments unless you make it a rule to do so (as I do in the Jovian Chronicles). Matt replies I would be more worried about this if I was gaming with some strangers, rather than a bunch of old friends. While I don't have a well defined background to the scenario, I do have a well defined track record and reputation with the group. I've been hosting games with these guys for close to ten years, and they pretty much know what to expect in one of my games. Just about everyone in the game would have the same general expectations for the game. As for the crazy stuff, it seems to me that this is handled fairly well in the MG rules. If I'm reading them right then if one player makes an argument that would cause trouble for a rival then that rival gets a free argument to try and counter it. So if the original argument was something ludicrous like "all your men get sucked to their deaths in a pit of quicksand" and it was rated very weak, you'd need to roll a 6. The counter argument would probably be strong since there would be plenty of good reasons for it not to happen, he'd need to roll 3-6 to counter it. The odds would be something like 18-1 against winning the dice off and having the original argument succeed. Somebody check my math. Even if it succeeded I think it would be fair to treat this as a conflict under the MG rules, which would mean arguments about what happens in the quicksand, and again an argument that a large group gets wiped out would be unlikely to succeed. If the player was foolish enough to try that argument, and he failed then the victim would get his shot at an argument, and could make a far less damaging argument about the results that would have a good chance of succeeding. The guys in the club have a lot of experience with war games and will realize pretty quickly that their arguments are precious (only one per turn) and trying to make really unlikely stuff happen to your opponent isn't going to work very often. Hopefully they'll learn to use the character backgrounds, terrain, and past events to create more realistic arguments. I do take your point that some arguments might be so outrageous that they would have to be ruled impossible. I believe the table in the MG rules includes a line for arguments rated "Stupid." As for players making duplicate arguments that could get a bit dull, but turn about is fair play, as they say. I think that the conditions have to be right for certain arguments to have a good chance of success. For example you would have a better chance of succeeding with a quicksand argument if your target was near a swamp. This might cut down on some of it. You would probably retaliate with a different argument tailored to fit the circumstances - characters, location, etc. I have to say that my thoughts are all in theory, however, as I haven't had a chance to try it yet. Thanks again for pointing out some important pit falls to this beginner. John Kantor sends more well thought out but long thoughts on how to run combat in MGs. (Sorry John but space requirements force me to not include it). But Matt’s reply is… Hmmm. Very well thought out. I'm a teacher, and I've been trained to holistically score student essays and the like. But even then we start out with a rubric that defines what elements are needed to achieve each score on the scale, so I can appreciate the system you've developed. I've been thinking a lot about this the last couple of days, and here's what I've come up with. Evaluating player arguments will be the main obligation and challenge for me as the referee. If I have six players making an argument a turn for about 12 turns, plus some extra trouble and conflict arguments I'll probably have to deal with about 100 arguments in the game. It would be a lot less if I went with my original plan to limit arguments to every other turn, but that would be chickening out, and I don't think I'll do that. I guess I'll be a bit shaky in rating arguments at first, but by the end of the game I should be pretty good at it. I won't spell out rules ahead of time about how I will rate arguments. I'll rely on logic. I know this may sound a bit foolhardy, but so be it. People are bound to get annoyed by at least some of my ratings, that's just human nature. Based on past experience with these players I think the worst I can expect from an irritated gamer is to have to endure some ribbing, which really just adds to the fun of the game anyway. It is possible that a player will try to "swing for the fences." Especially late in the game if he's in a bad position. I'll rely on the PBOM rules for conflicts and so forth to knock out most of the junk arguments, and if anything is really out of line I'll kindly ask the player to try another more reasonable argument. I will have the players separate the event and effect if they make arguments that cause trouble for other players. In our quicksand example this would mean that it wouldn't be too hard to have an opponent blunder into quicksand, but destroying an entire unit would be difficult. I will also encourage the players to use the TSATF rules and arguments to set up future events. In the quicksand example a player moving through swampy terrain might deploy scouts, under the TSATF rules, or might argue that they are picking a safe route through the swamp. Similarly a unit that just rushes across a stream that the scenario says is ripe with crocodiles is just asking for trouble! And likely to get it. Back to the quicksand example. I like your argument, but I'd have the player take out the effect and just argue that the unit encounters quicksand. I'd rate the argument strong, or maybe average. It sounds pretty good to me. The intended victim would get to argue why this wouldn't happen. Unless he's a fool he should be able to come up with an average argument, or at least a weak one. Assuming the first player wins the dice off then the poor unit has indeed encountered quicksand. That would be cool! Another element added to the matrix. In the future another unit had best be careful when traveling through that area, because we've just established that there's quick sand there! I like this MG stuff. Anyway, now we would dice for the effects. Quicksand works rather slowly, and usually the first few guys walk into it and everybody else stops and yells "Quicksand, get a rope!" So any argument that has a bunch of people getting killed is going to get a very low rating from me. This will be our first game, and a friendly one too, so if a player makes a ridiculously weak argument I would probably give him an opportunity to amend it if he wants to. A good argument about the effects might be to lose one or two guys, max, or that the unit loses their next turn pulling out their guys, or maybe that a couple of guys lose their weapons while getting out. If a player insisted on arguing that ten guys get sucked to their deaths I would probably say something like: "Ok, under the MG rules that would be rated as a "stupid" argument. You need to roll a seven." Then we would all laugh. After we all had a good laugh I'd ask him if he'd like to make a more reasonable argument, or let his opponent take a crack at it. [Clearly this is a gamer who is thinking! Now see what Matt does with this input!] Back to Table of Contents -- Matrix Gamer #28 To Matrix Gamer List of Issues To MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 2001 by Chris Engle. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com