Matrix Games, like any game approach can be done many different ways. In the last few months three PBeMs have shown how MGs can be done on the internet. At GenCon I experimented with using location cards and character cards rather than map is and figures. While some of my colleagues ran a 25mm Star Wars game on a 3D terrain board. This last approach usually gets the most attention. This article looks at one way to get together figures and terrain and how to use them in a game. FIGURES Matrix Games, unlike other systems need lots of non-combatants to work. I generally try to make 1/3rd to 1/2 of my characters women. Other characters are either too old or young to fight. I do this to give a realistic environment to play in. Most people seem weak. Don't believe that for a minute! Women, old men and children can be deadly given the right circumstances. Unfortunately, very few figures are made of people without guns. I know because I own most of them. But figures do exist for the medieval period, the Age of Reason, the 19th century (both Europe and the American West), the 1920's and 30's and the cyberpunk future. Ral Partha and RAFM make most of them by Lance and Lazer also have some nice ones. Figures made for Call of Cthulu, Raven Loft, Castle Falkenstein, Vampire the Masquarade and Shadowrun work well for 19th and 20th century periods. Ral Partha and other fantasy lines frequently make medieval peasants, nobles and churchmen. Lance and Lazer's Pendragon figures being the best. Historical line (especially one's on pirates) make 18th century civilians but these are much harder to find. I've collected for ten years - crawling around in the dealers area at cons - and now have a large collection. You can do it much quicker by looking on the internet. Soldiers are easy to find. The trouble is fitting them to the scale of you civilians. Ral Partha, RAFM and Lance and Laser use a 25mm scale. 28mm or 30mm figures just don't look right with them. The Foundry is rectifying this with their ever growing Darkest Africa line (19th century Explorers etc). These fellows are 28mm's. Usually buying soldiers from you source of civilians works best - but I do cast more widely myself. As long as they look right together all is fine. There is one source of non wargame 19th century civilians that are of the larger (30mm) scale. Victorian Christmas scenes - collected by women everywhere - can be used if one overlooks the "cute" poses some of them have. One figure represents of character. I name my figures after movie stars (Charlton Heston, Emma Peel, Sidney Greenstreet etc) so when doing my cast of characters I say who is playing the role. This is cute but it means I don't have to change labels all the time. Units are represented by several figures. I usually give the police four figures and military units anywhere from six to twelve figures per battalion. Obviously military games use a lot more figures than than other stories. I tend to favor using fewer than two hundred figures (at most) in a game. Frequently I keep it at around fifty. This makes the game more portable and still gives a busy table feel that makes games feel fun. I've stressed using 25mm figures because that was my aesthetic choice but that in no the only way to go. I understand there are 6mm rioter figures, and there certainly are lots of 20mm civilian figures for model rail roading. I know of no 10mm or 15mm civilians. If you opt for a 15mm scale or smaller then more than one figure needs to be put on a stand. Even with that I don't care much for the effect. I have lots of 6mm guys and find they just disappear on the table. They are best used by panoramic games like Science vs Pluck. If you use figures, they need to be well painted and mounted on a good stand. I personally believe that 1/3rd of the over all effect comes from the sculpting of the figure, 1/3rd from the paint job and 1/3rd from the base. We all enjoy buying figures so getting good poses is not difficult. Painting figures can be fun (I always imagine the games I'll play with them as I paint) but decorating bases is boring. Still if a great figure with a beautiful paint job is put on a card board base, the effect is ruined. At least paint the base brown or green. Better yet paint some glue on and sprinkle sand at their feet. Then one can use dry brush techniques and adding flock to make the base look really good. It is worth the effort when the first teenager picks up the figure and goes "Cool! I want to play!" So now your ready to play a game, right?...Well not quite... MAPS Matrix Games that use figures need to use a map. But figures on a map (even a really good map) are not very interesting. If you are just going to use a map then why not just move character cards around and skip all the work painting and mounting little men. Maps can be used in two ways. The map can be used for strategic movement - ala Diplomacy. Or all the action can take place on the one map. Using the map for strategic movement means that when a battle occurs the referee has to quickly lay out a battle field to be played on. This works - I did this for years - but now I use the second approach. I sculpt two foot by two foot 3D terrain boards out of polystyrene (blue board). Each board represents one strategic area on the map - so little men can literally move from one area to another in real time. I can guess your reaction. "What!?! You sculpt whole countries!!! You're crazy!" Quite possibly I am...but no, one does not have to sculpt entire countries (I did that once and don't relish repeating the experiment!) Instead make generic terrain types and just plop them down in front of the figures as they advance. Important sites may have their own board but this is the exception no the rule. Right now I'm preparing terrain boards for a make believe Arab state called "Dar al Salaam" (a cross between Egypt, Morocco, Iraq and India). Salaam (home of the Salamis or Salaami) is in North Africa on an alternate route to India. It consists of a river surrounded by desert and small villages. So I have three river sections, four desert boards, and oasis, a desert fort and an Arabian city. Which should give a diversity of terrain when mixed and matched. Later I'll make a delta, a beach front, ancient monuments (the temple of Firon) and a distant gold mine, but that is a ways off. The boards mix and match so I can create a continual flow of landscape. Each board is individualized by putting a few incidental terrain elements down. A tree, some scrub, rocks, a building, all add to the effect. Placing them is kind of like Japanese painting where the empty spaces are as important as the filled ones. Since boards can shift around easily, one can literally build a never ending landscape. Something one can not do with terrain laid out on a felt cloth. Terrain squares have the added advantage of instantly dividing the world into strategic areas for map movement. By combining the never ending landscape and a strategic map, one can do games about long marches and scouting for the enemy. Only Howard Whitehouse's Science vs Pluck does the same. (It is not surprising that I learned terrain making from Howard). Construction of terrain boards is actually easy and inexpensive (once you have the tools!) I will write an article on how to do this for a future MGer. THE FIGURES ARE PUPPETS AND THE TERRAIN THE STAGE Since it is clear that Matrix Games can be played without figures or terrain then what are they adding to the game? For my money they add theater. They are props that focus our attention and make it look pretty. They are not needed but boy can they be effective. Consider how a terrain field and figures paint the picture of a battle field so quickly. It is like in a science fiction movie when they pan out over the huge start fleet assembling. It is a special effect that makes one go "Wow." One can get the same effect with words but it takes more skill. Shakespeare did it in "Henry V." He used a narrator to speak a prologue to the Battle of Agincourt. The narrator said things like "Now imagine a great army gathering. Taken to ship it is transported to France. There to fall into minor sieges, looting and inaction. Now the King removes his men for a march north. One last raid before the winter. But low, he has walked into a trap! The French knights, brave and true, await his men. First behind, then in front, to force brave Henry to battle. The field on which we now stand. Look, yonder stands the Castle of Agincourt. In front of us the French army. A here the army of our king. Let us listen to what they say..." I am no writer of fiction, but many referees are worse than me. So resorting to words to paint a picture is hard at best. Great role play referees are born and not made. Special effects on the other hand can pull a rabbit out of many a hat. If the little men are actor and the terrain the stage, then where they are placed matters. Players literally act as the director, setting up the scenes that they will play out. They do this by moving. They act them out by the arguments they make. MOVEMENT: AN OVERVIEW I use three types of movement in my Matrix Games. Strategic movement, non-combat or free movement and combat movement. STRATEGIC MOVEMENT This is movement between areas. It is a big thing to move long distances so I require players to make an argument to do such a move. If the argument succeeds then the characters move. If it fails then they don't. Figures move one area a turn. It does not take an argument to move each turn. It only takes an argument to get a move started. Players can set a distant destination and once the army starts moving just keep moving one area a turn till the destination is reached. Really a strategic move is crossing a make believe barrier between two areas. I call it a "distance barrier". Distance barriers can just be distance or they can be physical barriers like rivers, mountains, bodies of water etc. Some barriers stop movement cold if one lacks a way across. For instance, the English Channel blocks all movement in war time. One would first need warships and command of the straights to move across easily. If the crossing is uncontested (like travel is in times of peace) then the move happens normally. If it is contested then it causes a conflict. More on this in combat movement. NON-COMBAT FREE MOVEMENT At the beginning of each turn I allow the players to make a free movement inside the area they are in. They may move all the characters and units they control anywhere they want to inside the area they are in. Free move completely opens up the game. One can move anywhere, be next to anyone. Figures from opposite ends of the area can come together to form a possible scene. While the players are moving they can also talk freely among themselves about the game. They can role play, do negotiations or make threats. When the move ends, the players begin to make that turns arguments. Some players do not want to be moved next to or have places they don't want characters to enter. They can prevent this by building barriers of "anonymity" and "defense" around themselves. No character may cross a barrier distance, defense or anonymity in a free move. Anonymity means no one knows or sees a person. They don't know who he is or where he is so he can not be followed. Disguises, hiding in shadows, blending into crowds all create on layer of anonymity. To "find" the person the seeker must breakdown these barriers. More on this in combat movement. Defense barriers are probably the most obvious. Walls, guards, lines of soldiers guarding the English Channel, etc, all block movement. To cross them one must either have permission (Halt and be recognized! Pass friend.) or fight your way through them. More on this in combat movement. COMBAT MOVEMENT There are two types of combat movement. Moving figures and crossing barriers. I use a simple miniatures game in my Matrix Game where the players roll one six-sided die and that is how many inches their men can move. There are no terrain rules or dice modifiers so figures can move anywhere over anything. Except barriers! Players can create defense, and anonymity barriers. Circumstances can make certain distance barriers also impassable. Figures may move up to them but not cross them. Crossing them requires an argument. In my tactical miniatures rules I give the players one argument a turn "to do something unexpected." In effect it is just like a regular turn except that the argument are about here and now things and are very short in duration. One of the things that can be argued for is to cross barriers. Crossing a barrier (anonymity, defense, distance or mental - yea there is one more barrier, the barrier we put around our minds to keep our secrets secret) causes a conflict. This means that the first argument started the try to cross the barrier but another round of arguments will settle what actually happens. The referee decides when an argument causes a conflict. So an argument to cross a broken down wall may just go through without a hitch or it can cause a conflict. In this way the referee can speed up and slow down the game. Putting emphasis on important points and quickly moving by unimportant ones. When a conflict happens, the referee decides who is involved and who is in the strongest position. Again this is where the referee can influence the game's drama. The referee considers all the preparations made by the players (quality of troops, training, strength of defenses etc) in deciding who is strongest. The strongest player then gets to make an argument about the outcome of the conflict. If it works the the matter is settled. If it fails then the next strongest player makes an argument etc until the matter is solved. This is a difficult notion so I will illustrate it with an example. WWI Trench Assault: Example of a Matrix Combat Argument WHEN TO LEAVE THE TERRAIN AND FIGURES BEHIND AND JUST TELL THE STORY There comes a time in all games when the figures and terrain no longer help in telling the story. If one stays with them then the game ends badly. Just like a science fiction movie that is only special effects and no story. When the story begins to wrap up it usually begins to focus on individual characters this is the time to leave the props behind. I frequently end games by putting them into high gear. One side has "won" the combat which brings up the question "What happens next?" I handle this by asking all the players to make arguments to answer the questions left open at the end game. Each player tries to put his spin on the outcome. One after another loose ends are tied up to form a solid end to a dramatic story. None of these argument requires moving figures. So the game does not drag on and on. Back to Table of Contents -- Matrix Gamer #8 To Matrix Gamer List of Issues To MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1999 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