Tournament Feedback

[TheFlax]

With the conclusion of the first tournament and in the hopes there will be more, I'd like to get some feedback on what you thought worked and didn't worked in order to provide a better second tournament.

I have my own thoughts, but I'd rather not spill them now and hear what each of you have to say.

Thank you in advance.

[TinCow]

In general, I thought it was excellent. It ran quickly, efficiently, and was not too difficult to understand. The below suggestions I consider to be very minor things, but since you asked:

1) Number the mugshots on the map so that they correspond to the list of contestants in the starting post. I'm never going to be able to remember who is who based purely on their mugshot, especially when so many of them have appeared in previous games.

2) Pick stance or weapon, don't use both. The RPS system is simple and easy to use, but making it a double RPS system is confusing and it's hard to figure out who has an advantage in what situation.

3) If we're going to keep the weapon choices, come up with some kind of jousting system. Maybe it was just because I ended up with a lance, but it seemed like I should have had some kind of bonus if I had made an attack after charging 6 hexes in a straight line at someone with a sword or a mace.

[Marcus Agrippa]

Well then it comes down to what you want. Realism or easy dice game?

In warhammer there were rules for a jousting tournament as a supplement to the Bretonnians. A pretty good system if you ask me.

But I will say lances first then drop and choose mace or sword.
From what I've learned swords beat maces due to the fact that maces have a shorter reach and can overbalance you. Swords are much lighter, longer and can parry but will do less damage due to the maces design and weight.
So you would need to manage your character like a warhammer type guy if you were to try realism.
But the attack choice was fine and the weapon choice could change from lance to shorter weapon after lance breaks / not enough room to get momentum.

That's my comments but I think it was fun and The Flax did a great job.

[econ21]

I thought it worked well. The duelling rules are taken from a skirmish combat game and work better for melees rather than 1:1 combat, as the use of outnumbering and maneouvre mean it's not just about luck. The fact that some people wanted to use the melee to fight honourable duels whereas others were trying to fight it like a battle added an extra and unexpected role-playing frisson to it all.

I think limiting communication in some way is probably a good idea - allow it prior to battle and then restrict it during the fight. The shout-out thread is a bit too restrictive but was simple and seemed to function well enough.

Next time, I would probably allow orders of the kind "charge enemy player A" to avoid a slightly unrealistic "ships passing in the night" movement that can happen with just chess like orders.

I'd also remove any "locked in combat" situations. Make sure the retreats from each round of comabt leave each player at least one hex away from any enemy after all combat. Having some fixed points - people locked who could not move - was a little unfair to those players and made tactics revolve around ganging up on them, as you knew where they lived, so to speak.

I agree with the idea of replacing RPS with weapons. I think the RPS in the original duelling system was simply to give players something to do. When they can move, that's not really necessary.

It would be possible to explicitly introduce mounted combat, but we'd need to think a little about the mechanics of getting unhorsed etc. We'd end up with a more complex system, but I am not sure it would add much to the gameplay. At first, I was not convinced by the move six in a straight line rule for people on foot (where 3 in any direction seems better), but on reflection, it makes sense as an implicit way for allowing for mounts.

We might need to think about victory conditions - they seem a little too individualistic for a team based contest. Also, I hadn't anticipated that a captured knight could win a tournament - that seems a little odd. I think I would prefer the next melee to be fought until one side has defeated all enemies and the victor being the last man standing who has the most captures. Or if fighting to the end is too time consuming, declare one side the victor on turn 7 (based on number surviving) and that side's uncaptured knight with the most captures is the tournament winner.

Finally, next time around, I'd make the sides non-random purely for role-playing reasons. The random sides were fine for turn 1, where we don't know each other well. But we will form friendships and loyalties, and it would be nice to try to work with them. Ideally, make it 2 Houses vs 2 Houses with independents making up the numbers. Or just choose two captains and let them pick their men, one at time.

[TinCow]

We might need to think about victory conditions - they seem a little too individualistic for a team based contest. Also, I hadn't anticipated that a captured knight could win a tournament - that seems a little odd. I think I would prefer the next melee to be fought until one side has defeated all enemies and the victor being the last man standing who has the most captures. Or if fighting to the end is too time consuming, declare one side the victor on turn 7 (based on number surviving) and that side's uncaptured knight with the most captures is the tournament winner.

I was thinking we could perhaps make future tournaments more like their historical counterparts. Essentially, the main event is an elimination contest mainly focused on jousting. Two people joust. The first to score three points on his opponent wins and advances to the next round. The RPS component can be factored in the help determine whether someone hits their opponent or deflects a blow. In a contest to the death, if someone is dismounted but alive, the opponent also dismounts and the fight continues with melee weapons. For a really, really big tournament, additional contests could be added alongside, include the mass melee like we just had, individual melee, and archery duels.

[deguerra]

I was thinking we could perhaps make future tournaments more like their historical counterparts. Essentially, the main event is an elimination contest mainly focused on jousting. Two people joust. The first to score three points on his opponent wins and advances to the next round. The RPS component can be factored in the help determine whether someone hits their opponent or deflects a blow. In a contest to the death, if someone is dismounted but alive, the opponent also dismounts and the fight continues with melee weapons. For a really, really big tournament, additional contests could be added alongside, include the mass melee like we just had, individual melee, and archery duels.

Not to nitpick, TC, but from my understanding the classical idea of "jousting" was only one of several medieval tournament disciplines, and tended not to be the main focus, which was rather on a sort of mass melee not unlike ours.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tournam...the_Tournament

[TinCow]

Interesting, I stand corrected, thanks for the link!

[OverKnight]

I invoke the rule of cool when it comes to Jousting. Accuracy, shmaccuracy.

A jousting elimination tournament would be cool. Imagine a thread with trash talking jousters engaged in combat with heckles and cheers from the crowd. I'm thinking Ren fair but cooler.

[Ramses II CP]

Things ran quickly and well, which is the most important part. My only complaint is that a number of the rules were not made clear from the start, such as that eliminated participants could win and how captures were made. I took it for granted that since we had an initiative system only the person striking the last blow could make a capture; having those elements not be revealed from the start really makes Louis' more cautious and group based strategy look foolish in retrospect.

[Ituralde]

Really the only thing I missed was the possibility to give more detailed commands. I understand that that makes implementing them quite hard and often lacks accuraccy which leads to misinterpretation and a complete other mess. Still, with the initiative system in place it would have been nice to make some simple if else decisions. If Character A is within my reach I will attack him. Else move towards 0803. Something like that.

[Rowan]

Not knowing who would be moving first really made it hard to plan any proper tactics. I still have no idea how Alph ended where he did on the last round (it seems he was blocked by someone after moving one hex, but there's no one there... must have retreated afterwards or something...). One solution would be more abstract orders but that means more job for the GM and introduces ambiguity.

Future melees I'd ditch the low/mid/high and do a suitable roll modified by econ's fight abilities (the 50/51 figure). Also: keep different weapon types but maybe give sword, +1 to hit but less damage (1d6 instead of 2d4 maybe?), mace does heavier damage but is harder to defend with so -1 when defending... I don't think lances would be used in a melee so maybe replace it with axe or something, with no bonuses to fighting and damage between mace and sword.

[Zim]

That was at least partly my doing. TheFlax talked to me about this after the tournament. I was worried that it wasn't explicitly made clear in the rules what effect if any being captured had so I suggested for this tournament AG's character still be allowed to place. In future tournaments I expect to have being captured result in being disqualified.

Things ran quickly and well, which is the most important part. My only complaint is that a number of the rules were not made clear from the start, such as that eliminated participants could win and how captures were made. I took it for granted that since we had an initiative system only the person striking the last blow could make a capture; having those elements not be revealed from the start really makes Louis' more cautious and group based strategy look foolish in retrospect.

[Cecil XIX]

I was thinking we could perhaps make future tournaments more like their historical counterparts. Essentially, the main event is an elimination contest mainly focused on jousting. Two people joust. The first to score three points on his opponent wins and advances to the next round. The RPS component can be factored in the help determine whether someone hits their opponent or deflects a blow. In a contest to the death, if someone is dismounted but alive, the opponent also dismounts and the fight continues with melee weapons. For a really, really big tournament, additional contests could be added alongside, include the mass melee like we just had, individual melee, and archery duels.

I rather like the idea of starting future tournaments with both sides lining up on opposite ends as it was here, then jousting the first round for double-damage. Those who survive then dismount and fight it out as before. It would be a good deal faster, especially if one side dominates the initial impact, but it's quickness would make it suitable if we wanted to a grand tournement without having it take a week.

[TheFlax]

Apparently I never replied to this, I guess it completely slipped my mind.

First off, thank you for all your comments, I'll try to address them and probably I'll have a similar thread some time before another tournament to iron out the concepts on how we want it to work.

Number the mugshots on the map so that they correspond to the list of contestants in the starting post. I'm never going to be able to remember who is who based purely on their mugshot, especially when so many of them have appeared in previous games.

Good point, I'll add such a number in the colored dot indicating the avatar's team. The dot shall be made bigger.

Pick stance or weapon, don't use both. The RPS system is simple and easy to use, but making it a double RPS system is confusing and it's hard to figure out who has an advantage in what situation.

It was also a pain to implement while doing results, I'm not sure what system I'll keep, but next time around there will be definitely only one RPS system.

If we're going to keep the weapon choices, come up with some kind of jousting system. Maybe it was just because I ended up with a lance, but it seemed like I should have had some kind of bonus if I had made an attack after charging 6 hexes in a straight line at someone with a sword or a mace.

I had thought of something like that, but decided against it with the already complex double RPS system. It will be considered for the next tournament if I can come up with something interesting and simple for each weapon.

But I will say lances first then drop and choose mace or sword.
From what I've learned swords beat maces due to the fact that maces have a shorter reach and can overbalance you. Swords are much lighter, longer and can parry but will do less damage due to the maces design and weight.
So you would need to manage your character like a warhammer type guy if you were to try realism.
But the attack choice was fine and the weapon choice could change from lance to shorter weapon after lance breaks / not enough room to get momentum.

I am not sure about adding the complication of switching weapons. The unit cards are already small as it is, I'm not I could clearly convey the who is using a lance, who has a broken lance and to what weapon they switched. I'll keep it in mind though.

I think limiting communication in some way is probably a good idea - allow it prior to battle and then restrict it during the fight. The shout-out thread is a bit too restrictive but was simple and seemed to function well enough.

The IC shout thread seemed good enough for communication during the fighting. Including shouts and stuff like that in the writeup was a bit of pain and I forgot more than one.

Next time, I would probably allow orders of the kind "charge enemy player A" to avoid a slightly unrealistic "ships passing in the night" movement that can happen with just chess like orders.

I'm open to that but I really dislike sorting through contengencies. Not having to move like a drone if your target moved out of the way makes sense though.

I'd also remove any "locked in combat" situations. Make sure the retreats from each round of comabt leave each player at least one hex away from any enemy after all combat. Having some fixed points - people locked who could not move - was a little unfair to those players and made tactics revolve around ganging up on them, as you knew where they lived, so to speak.

Agreed, this was implemented because I had not forseen people not being able to get away by only moving one hex. In hindsight, it was pretty stupid of me. I will be keeping the mechanic of being locked in combat once you enter a hex adjacent to an enemy though. (Meaning you end your movement when next to an enemy.)

It would be possible to explicitly introduce mounted combat, but we'd need to think a little about the mechanics of getting unhorsed etc. We'd end up with a more complex system, but I am not sure it would add much to the gameplay. At first, I was not convinced by the move six in a straight line rule for people on foot (where 3 in any direction seems better), but on reflection, it makes sense as an implicit way for allowing for mounts.

Actually, I always thought everyone was mounted. I assumed this based on my brief research on tournaments but I don't think I ever explained this anywhere in the tournament thread. The 6 hex charge movement was created so people can close faster on each other, but on the other hand I didn't want people to be moving all over the place once engaged in battle. Also, my basic idea was that when you took enough damage to "kill" you, you were dismounted and captured. Again, I should have been more clear.

We might need to think about victory conditions - they seem a little too individualistic for a team based contest. Also, I hadn't anticipated that a captured knight could win a tournament - that seems a little odd. I think I would prefer the next melee to be fought until one side has defeated all enemies and the victor being the last man standing who has the most captures. Or if fighting to the end is too time consuming, declare one side the victor on turn 7 (based on number surviving) and that side's uncaptured knight with the most captures is the tournament winner.

The victory conditions need an overhaul, I think they suffered the worse from this tournament being a very rushed effort on my part. I don't have anything concrete to offer right now, but this should be discussed in the future, before another tournament takes place.

Finally, next time around, I'd make the sides non-random purely for role-playing reasons. The random sides were fine for turn 1, where we don't know each other well. But we will form friendships and loyalties, and it would be nice to try to work with them. Ideally, make it 2 Houses vs 2 Houses with independents making up the numbers. Or just choose two captains and let them pick their men, one at time.

I was going to do that, but the mighty Zim preferred random. For a next time it would be better as non-random, I agree.

Things ran quickly and well, which is the most important part. My only complaint is that a number of the rules were not made clear from the start, such as that eliminated participants could win and how captures were made. I took it for granted that since we had an initiative system only the person striking the last blow could make a capture; having those elements not be revealed from the start really makes Louis' more cautious and group based strategy look foolish in retrospect.

For a next time, the rules will be posted in advance so we can clarify everything. Apologies, but this time around it was rather rushed and the rules greatly suffered for it.

[Zim]

I actually would have preferred something non-random, but assumed it didn't happen because there were difficulties making the two sides even...

I was going to do that, but the mighty Zim preferred random. For a next time it would be better as non-random, I agree.