There have been a number of recent developments in Matrix gaming that I though that NUGGET readers might be interested in. Chris Engle, who invented Matrix Games in 1988, is about to publish the first "commercial" Matrix Game, called "Dark Portals". He has been busy refining just what he means by the term "Matrix Game" and how it works. Some of his correspondence inspired me to make the Richard III game at COW and later the X-Files game (which was published in the NUGGET and Wargames Illustrated). SIMPLIFIED ARGUMENTS The first refinement is the decision to permit "Simple" arguments. These consist of a simple statement about something happening; for example: Wellington's Army moves to Talavera, Scully practices down at the pistol range, or Jim picks up his girlfriend at 8pm. These are assessed by the Umpire and are given a success probability. The idea behind the "Simple" argument is that it makes the Matrix Game more accessible, particularly to younger players. I assume that these arguments are based on things that should be possible in the normal course of events, unless something unusual happened to stop them. They represent things that are normally easy to do and therefore should almost always succeed. To me, if the Umpire finds that he wants to ask the question "Why?" after the player has finished making his argument, then the "Simple" argument is flawed. FREE MOVE Closely related to the "Simple" argument is the concept of the free move where, before arguments have been made, the player states where he wants to start the turn. All movement is free, unless there exist "Barriers to Movement", such as distance (particularly for pre-19th Century games), or physical barriers such as locked doors and fences. This means that routine movement within a particular vicinity does not require an argument. I think this is nothing more than common sense, but does serve to focus the game designer on deciding just what "Barriers to Movement" there really are in a particular scenario. SECRET ARGUMENTS These are where the player says what happened, but passes secretly to the Umpire the reasons why it happened. He then decides in the normal way, but the other players don't get to hear why. I personally don't like this idea, but I can imagine in certain types of scenario where it might have some utility. THE TRUTH Another introduction has been the idea of the "Truth". This has been used as a term by players in a number of Play-by-Mail and E-Mail when talking about the results of successful arguments. The Umpire keeps track of the Truth by writing it down as the game progresses. This is extremely helpful for E-Mail games in which players can enter or leave when they want to. They have a document with the current Truth posted on it for all to refer to. It might also be helpful in larger games for the Umpire to say what the Truth is at the end of each turn. RESOLVING CONFLICTS Probably the most important refinement to the Matrix Game concept, is the idea of using Arguments to resolve conflicts, rather than separate systems such as SCRUD or tabletop rules. This relates to direct player Vs player conflict (your Army Vs his Army, you want to impeach him Vs he wants to forget it ever happened), rather than overcoming non-player elements (finding the secret trail through the mountains, improving your skill at pistol shooting). It has the huge advantage of allowing all sorts of non-battle type player conflicts to be resolved easily. It is important to note that if a player argues that something happens, and another player argues that it doesn't, both arguments are given a success probability. If both succeed, the players then roll off against each other to decide on what actually happened (the Truth). THIS IS NOT RESOLVING CONFLICT, but simply resolving a Logical Inconsistency in the game. If a player argues that a battle takes place for control of a town, and the town is one that another player is controlling, a Conflict MAY take place. If the other player also argues for the battle, perhaps with modifying arguments in his favor, then the battle really DOES take place - and the player may or may not have the benefit of the modifying factors, depending if his argument succeeded or not. In this case it is obvious that the players are now in direct Conflict with each other; but the Umpire can decide that other types of arguments given by the players during a turn, place then in direct Conflict. When players are in Conflict, the players are invited to make supplementary arguments for the outcome of the Conflict (we capture the town, because...or we impeach his ass, because...). These are assessed by the Umpire in the normal way, a success chance arrived at, and the dice then thrown. Chris says that the players must make their arguments in order, with the player having the advantage going first (since no situation is ever perfectly balanced). If he succeeds, it is all over. If he fails, the other player makes an argument, and so on. This is quick but leaves me a little uneasy. It might be more fun as an alternative to make all sides write their arguments down on a piece of paper so each can have a success probability – then simultaneously dice until only one player has succeeded. I think that Bob Cordery might prefer this method. Another way of doing things is to resolve the Conflict as Chris suggests, but make sure that both sides get a chance to argue the same number of times. This means that if the first player succeeds, his argued result becomes immediately the Truth; but the other player has an opportunity to argue something else (which must be related to the immediate Conflict) that might succeed. So, if there is a battle for the town and the attackers succeed in capturing it, the loosing player might argue that he managed to escape with some of his force intact. I personally like this alternative – especially since I will force the loosing player to come up with his argument quickly... COMMON ELEMENTS The discussion all these elements has led on to the development of common concepts found in all Matrix Games. These are put by Chris as: 1. Characters. Those people, or groups of people who the game is about. 2. Relationships. Their relationships with others. 3. Treasures. Valuable things in the game. 4. Movement. The fact that movement requires and argument. 5. Barriers to Movement. Things that prevent movement. 6. Conflict. Where player elements oppose each other. 7. Planning. Players argue to make plans how to deal with situations. 8. Secrets. Things that some or all of the players don't know. My personal view is that these are a bit woolly and overlap each other. I prefer the following: 1. Characters with defined Relationships and Resources. 2. Objectives. 3. Barriers to Movement. 4. Conflict. 5. Secrets. I think that Characters need to have some idea about the basic Relationship and Resource framework they are operating in. Eg: You are Wellington, Commander of the British Army in Spain; or you are Jimmy, an unattached car-worker who lives with his Mum. These can of course be modified as the result of a successful argument, but the player must have some sort of logical start point from which to begin the game. I prefer the idea of Objectives, rather than Treasures, as it allows for motivational ideas (such as getting rich) as well as concrete things (like the Crown of Succession or even "Hill 112"). I don't think that there should be separate topics for Movement as well as Barriers to movement, especially when the concept of an element of "free movement" has been explained more fully. I would simply prefer the idea of explaining in the scenario introduction the sorts of Barriers to Movement that exist in the scenario, and letting play develop accordingly. Conflict, on the other hand, is the basic bread-and-butter of why we are here. You can have a Matrix Game in which all the players work together in peace and harmony with happy, smiling, faces - but it seems pretty dull to me. Lastly it is sometimes helpful to explain to the players, at the start of a scenario (much in the same way as you might talk about "Barriers to Movement"), what sort of things are unknown to the players and will require successful arguments to find them out. NEW MATRIX GAMES Chris is about to publish commercially his "Dark Portals" game, which I hope to be able to review soon. It is a Horror genre adventure game with a rule book and using playing cards containing the character, scenario, objective, conflict, secret information in a pocket sized pack - I think. There are also a couple of Play-by-E-Mail games going on. These allow players to drop in and out, and keep track on the sequence of arguments, and the Truth, on line. They use a variation of Chris' rules which I must admit I found hard to get on with. Arguments are kept track of through a system of structured branching; and the arguments themselves had to be submitted in a more formal way (using "I DECLARE; YES, AND; YES, BUT; and NO, ACTUALLY" prefixes). Each of these is used to modify the previous argument (or rather "Statement") in a specific way - despite the fact that the arguments in support of the statements seemed rather unstructured and waffling to me. These produced rolling narratives of the developing game Truth, which were jolly interesting but I'm not sure were getting very far. If you want to see for yourself, try "Giants in the Deep" by Loren Miller at http://www.geocities.com/area51/cavern/7398/. 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