Hello Lee, an interesting question this week. I think the key difference is in the ongoing development of the adventurers in a RPG. That's something that also happens in map-based campaign wargames, where losses in one battle carry over into future actions and the outcome of the campaign is not just a question of who won the most battles. Often a map campaign feels more like a boardgame, with figures on a tabletop replacing the combat results table, but the result decided with counters on the map. The map also provides a reason for the same forces to fight each other repeatedly (e.g. the light division in Portugal in 1809), which otherwise feels odd in a skirmish campaign. If the heroic band of brothers fights a different group of the enemy each time, then only one side is advancing; play balance needs something like an increasing points budget for the non-progressing side, and that player doesn't get the same sense of investment. Skirmish campaigns where both groups advance (e.g. Mordheim) tend to become unbalanced quickly and the player with the early lead just keeps winning more every time the two warbands fight. Another question is whether the game is PvP (typical for a wargame) or PvE (typical for a RPG). These days we also see coop PvE games (e.g. 2 platoons of USMC in Vietnam vs a referee-controlled NVA or even a programmed opponent), which is closer to RPG in flavour.
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Hello Lee, an interesting question this week. I think the key difference is in the ongoing development of the adventurers in a RPG. That's something that also happens in map-based campaign wargames, where losses in one battle carry over into future actions and the outcome of the campaign is not just a question of who won the most battles. Often a map campaign feels more like a boardgame, with figures on a tabletop replacing the combat results table, but the result decided with counters on the map.
ReplyDeleteThe map also provides a reason for the same forces to fight each other repeatedly (e.g. the light division in Portugal in 1809), which otherwise feels odd in a skirmish campaign. If the heroic band of brothers fights a different group of the enemy each time, then only one side is advancing; play balance needs something like an increasing points budget for the non-progressing side, and that player doesn't get the same sense of investment. Skirmish campaigns where both groups advance (e.g. Mordheim) tend to become unbalanced quickly and the player with the early lead just keeps winning more every time the two warbands fight.
Another question is whether the game is PvP (typical for a wargame) or PvE (typical for a RPG). These days we also see coop PvE games (e.g. 2 platoons of USMC in Vietnam vs a referee-controlled NVA or even a programmed opponent), which is closer to RPG in flavour.