After GenCon 99 I got real active and did another draft of the Matrix Game rules. At the time I felt very good about what I had written. But as usually, a few months down the line I look at my work and wonder "What was I thinking? This is incomprehensible!" I don't know why it is but for some reason, writing a coherent set of rules is very difficult to do. I should be easy. Especially if the when the steps are very straight forward and simple. But it is not easy. I've always had the goal of making a set of rules that a not so bright 12 year old can read and play. I've spent years play testing rules that are simple but able to simulate a wide range of situations. Those rules are now present. But no 12 year old can read and understand them. The rules I wrote in August do have all the elements there. But they just don't convey the information they need to. I figure that a college graduate could read them and by looking at the example of play I include with the scenarios – be able to figure out how to play. Clearly the information needs a reworking. To this end I've started a new version of the rules. For four yeas I've thought about doing a "comic book" version of the rules. Heavy on pictures and story board examples. Light on long text sections. This will give players a closer feel to playing the game rather than just reading about it. I've long know that playing the game is the quickest way to learn it. The advent of a scanners, lots of memory (the fruits of the recent upgrade from hell) a good publishing program and a little knowledge of graphic arts is all that it takes to get it started. So far I've got four pages done. I estimate that the rules will be around twenty pages long. At most thirty pages. But these will be pages that people should be able to understand. I don't think I'm down to the dull twelve year old level. But a bright teenager should be able to understand it. Which brings me to why I am so mentally challenged. It is easier to make something complicated than it is to make something simple. I've always aimed at simple and tried to keep MG rules very short and common sense based. For the most part I've only added new rules it when they add levels of depth without lots of complexity. As of right now the basic game is 1. Players make up what they want to have happen. 2. The referee decides how strong arguments which sets their chance of happening. 3. The referee decides which arguments are logically inconsistent - so that actions make sense. 4. The referee decides which arguments cause conflict and trouble. Conflict and trouble are the new additions. They add a lot of depth and also add a subtle problem for me. The problem is that they tie into two elements from the "Matrix" of MGs. Conflict deals with "barriers" and trouble with "statuses". On the surface we all know what conflict is. Its fighting! Right? WRONG! Most conflict is about decisions that have nothing to do with fighting. Conflict has to do when people disagree. Conflict resolution then is when people resolve their disagreements. This is subtle because fighting might be the exact wrong thing to do to settle a dispute. Since I don't want twenty different conflict resolution procedures I had to come up with one over arching concept. The concept is the barrier. So conflict is like crossing a fence. The outcome of the conflict is which side of the fence you end up on. There are lots of types of barriers (which is where the complexity comes in) but just one method for dealing with all of them. Distance Barriers – That divide areas and block easy Movement. Defense Barriers – That protect certain locations within areas that will be defended if an enemy tries to cross them. Anonymity Barriers – That make people be hidden from one another. Trying to find some (to arrest them or give them their Publisher's Clearing House prize) means finding a way through this barrier. Mental Barriers – That protect our thoughts from the outside (and even from ourselves – Freud's unconscious). Interrogation and torture are ways through these barriers (as well as psychotherapy). Difficulty Barriers – When an action is not something the referee thinks can be resolved in a single turn then these hurdles come into play. So a scientist may have to cross two or three barriers to invent a new weapon while a normal person would have to cross ten or more barriers to reach the same goal. Subtle – yes. Widely applicable – yes. Does it add depth? Yes! Is it easy to explain? NOOOOOO!!!!! Which leads to Trouble. When faced with trouble the player gets a chance to dodge it. If he fails then the character gets the effect of whatever it is. But how is this effect shown? In games, if something does not effect the play of the game it does not exist! So in number based games – if it ain't a number it is meaningless. Thus endless dice modifiers that attempt to account for everything on Earth. Matrix Games started as an attempt to use words rather than numbers. And they do. When an action happens it joins the game as a "Status". A status is just a small piece of information about something. It has no numerical value. So how can it effect the play? Simple! Each piece of information effects the referee's decisions on how strong arguments are. Simple! But doesn't that require the referee to keep track of what is going on in the game? And doesn't that require the referee to know a lot about the way the world works? Darn! It does! Of course referees don't have to be very skilled. They can just make it up as the go along. (That's what I do!) But a sense of story and a flare for the dramatic really help. And how does one convey that in writing! So conflict and trouble add all the spices of the world to games. But they also make them very hard to teach. It would be different if this were building off a type of game that was already well established. But Matrix Games are still new. They still are not part of the vernacular. Hopefully the comic book approach will work better. Bear with me. The path to spreading MGs to the world is still being blazed. Back to Table of Contents -- Matrix Gamer #9 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