From: Tom Jones Subject: Up Front vs. other card wargames I sent this post to the Up Front mailing list with a different header, but thought there might be some interest in Consim as well. -Tom ----------------------- Up Front is a great game. I would like to hear your considered opinions about why this is true. If you've played other man to man level wargames such as Sniper!, Close Assault/Firepower, Soldiers (WE), or Ambush/Shell Shock, how do they measure up vs. Up Front? How many times have you played the 3 basic nationalities in Patrol or City Fight? I played them dozens of times before getting my first feeling that I needed a new scenario. It defies logic. In a general sense, UF has 10-15 units per side, on a 4x6 square grid, with movement allowances of 0-1. There must be a wargame law that says such ingredients should make for a game that is as much fun as folding laundry, or playing SPI's intro game Strike Force One. Even chess and checkers have an 8x8 grid with MA > 1. To get the ball rolling, I'll throw out my thoughts. For me the genius of Up Front is the action deck. It works so well because it's coupled to an appealing scale and topic, with fast and interactive gameplay. The result is an emotional roller coaster of a game that puts you inside the action. I don't believe that the heart of its appeal is the just fact that you're using cards. The fact that it plays so quickly does count for a lot though. After searching for the best way to describe the function of the action deck, I would call it an opportunity bottleneck. In any game, you have rules that delimit what is possible. Then, of all possible moves, you have the current position that limits moves that make sense (and this is of course never entirely clear, or the game would play itself). Most games end there. Up Front (and a few others I will mention), go an extra step. Through the action deck, even the moves that make sense are limited by the cards you hold. What does this opportunity bottleneck give you? In one package, you get command control problems (troops don't immediately do what you want); fog of war (I may know where his troops are, but not their current capabilities); risk taking (can I rush forward and get into terrain before being cut to ribbons?); and feints (I'll draw out his fire with group A, then move up with C. You also get a sense of urgency (I need a rally card now!) and a plateful of agonizing decisions. Even though these decisions are often very gamey, the agony is real. Design for effect anyone?. For example, you have three moving groups, and one good terrain in your hand. The terrain can appear anywhere, but on only one group. Well, three moving groups may be foolish, or just risky, but the game system does create anomolies that I'm willing to ignore because it gives so much else in return. There are also other elements of the game that are different, and in many ways superior to games of similar scale. The group concept is excellent and has several effects. It urges you to think in terms of task rather than individual men -- eg this is my firebase, this is my maneuver group. It creates tradeoffs such as larger groups put out more firepower, but take more casualties on average and are harder to move. Also, rather than having a hex-based mapboard, there is an abstracted, boardless battlefield. This may be a detraction for some. But, the imagination is powerful if allowed some freedom. For me, Up Front puts me _inside_ the action much more so than comparable games with boards, or even miniatures. This creates a sense of roleplaying when coupled with the named soldiers that I find appealing. Test, what response is evoked when I mention the name Pvt. Wolff? How about Pvt. Beck? (or in our lingo, Pvt. Bedwetter.) When I've played Firepower, Soldiers, or damned near any other wargame, I feel like an outsider manipulating the events like Mars. I think there is a similar dichotomy between watching a film vs. reading a book. I'd like to give one last analogy. I did some roleplaying in high school. I encountered two different styles of resolving combat. In one case, there were miniatures for each person/creature as well as terrain. In this case, resolving combat was the opposite of roleplaying. Your point of view was external, watching the battle from above like an aerial spectator who occasionally got to move his 'piece'. On the other hand, there was a style of resolving combat where figures were not used to track the action.By necessity, movement was abstracted and you couldn't have large skirmishes. Everything took place in your head, and it felt like you were inside the battle. You were participating from the perspective of your character. I think there is a major distinction that I've never seen addressed. The imagination can more than make up for a lack of painted figures and flocked trees. Somehow, this created a much greater sense of panic and the flush of victory. Even though we could achieve greater precision and "realism" using figures, the effect was far more powerful and fun when done using the imagination. While I don't feel like I'm looking through Beck's eyes in Up Front, I feel like I'm in the action with my squad. I would make the same claim for Rise of the Luftwaffe, another game using the same core concept as UF. RotL is another card-based wargame. It's abstract like UF, but far, far more simple. Each player usually controls 2 planes. All actions are restricted by the hand of cards you obtain from a common draw pile. I've played multiple game of Richtofen's War, Air Force and Flight Leader, but again, I always had an external perspective. RotL, a simpler game with no mapboard made me feel like I was in a dogfight. I didn't literally see through the pilot's eyes, as I suggested in my roleplaying experience, but I felt like I was taking part in, rather than observing the action. Am I crazy, or do other people notice this difference in perspective? If this is a real phenomenon, is it mostly a function of the mapless battlefield, or does the action deck figure strongly? Finally, I would like to make a point that not all card games share Up Front's special characteristics. I would make a fundamental distinction between those that are action deck-based, and those that are not. Within the class using action decks, there is a subgroup I call Nuke War Variants. While Nuclear War does use a deck of cards to regulate all actions, its really an archetypical multiplayer game of "Hah, Take That!" Action Deck based (games and wargames) ------------------ Up Front Rise of the Luftwaffe/8th Air Force Attack Sub Guerrilla (a consim subject, but not a wargame per se) Roadkill (clearly related to Up Front, but a race) Wrasslin' (The quote I here about this is -- horrible topic, great game) * Nuke War subgroup * Nuclear War Naval War Enemy in Sight Modern Naval Battles (although MNB II changes this somewhat, I think there is still no manuevering, just blasting away). Non-Action Deck Based --------------------- Echelons of Fury Dark Crusade Tank Commander Dixie/Eagles I think that all of the collectable card game (CCG) wargames are not just simpler, inferior versions of Up Front, but completely different animals. I don't think you could create a CCG that approachs the beauty of Up Front, simply because you don't have an action deck to create opportunity bottlenecks. Instead the "special" cards in CCG's serve to give you an addional ability. Most of the cards are actually units, and you have to draw many or most as reinforcements. It defies the CCG paradigm to have all of your units on the battlefield at the start (although this could be changed). There are many opportunities for creating card-based wargames that approach the appeal of Up Front, but they must use an action deck. Thus, the game must be boxed and not a CCG. I would love to see GMT's Bellum come out as a complete game using an action deck. I'd love to see a squad or platoon level WWII game. This would allow you to play games with several tank units per side where losing one wouldn't spell doom. I don't really enjoy armor in Up Front because of this all or nothing tendancy. I think you could make a terrific tactical level wargame from any period using cards, but it's not going to happen in the CCG format. Sadly, I suspect that this will be the only viable format for a long time. Sorry to go on for so long, but I've been pondering this for a while. Tom tajones@bcubed.lansnet.com From: Jim Matt Subject: Up Front vs. other card wargames Tom, great post! I think that many stodgy grognards don't try Up Front for the following reasons: 1. It's a card game. What a wimpy medium for a /WARGAME/! (Like dice and little cardboard pieces make a "real" wargame manly?) 2. It's luck based. Pull the card you need and instant deux ex machina. (Well, not really stodgy grognard. Besides, we all know how that a 1 in 6 chance on the 1:1 column of the CRT is so realistic and true to life; it's like you are there! :P) 3. There's no board. How can it reflect tactical combat without knowing exactly where your men are? (Hard to explain to those that don't really want to know. Guess they still like riding their horse and listening to vinyl records; brrrr, don't see how those newfangled horseless carriages and CD players could ever work) 4. The rules are complex, with so many pages. (Well they are complex if you have to teach yourself the whole system without help (FTF or on-line). But we all remember pulling Squad Leader out of the box and playing like experts with all the rules in 10 or 15 minutes back in 1978, don't we?) 5. I don't like tactical situations. (Good point. You'd really have a bad time.) 6. You can't play solitaire or by e-mail. (WRONG! Solitiare is a great game because there is still a fog of war that exists even when playing the other side. And e-mail is now being done on the Up Front ladder. The games are slow to complete (2 months instead of 45 minutes), but a slightly different enjoyment is derived). -=-=--= >...the genius of Up Front is the action deck. It works so well because it's >coupled to an appealing scale and topic, with fast and interactive gameplay... >The fact that it plays so quickly does count for a lot though. You're right, this is the key. The action deck handles all random results, as well as cards you put into your hand for handling actions (Moving, Firing, Rallying, etc.). The deck is right there for immediate resolutions. And there are no steeenking CRTs for combat. >I would call it an opportunity bottleneck. In any game, you have rules that >delimit what is possible. Then, of all possible moves, you have the current >position that limits moves that make sense... Opportunity bottleneck -- I like that. It gives the appropriate vision to people not familiar. There is something more to this too. Experience and knowlege of the deck. And this is NOT card counting. Moderate and veteran players will have additional decisions to make with the same cards that a beginner has. The beginner will probably play a Fire card if he has the appropirate prerequesites (e.g. enough firepower to use that card). A more experienced player might hold off using a Fire card to try and pull a 1-2 punch in a future turn, or save it to use when the enemy is moving (and is a riper target). Or to conserve cards in the deck(s) so the game does not end as quickly, and he has more time to accomplish his goal. Same with using a Concealed card. The beginner plays it cause he has it. The experienced player weighs the odds and uses his own heuristic to determine if he plays it or not. Same with using a Movement card. Same with a Hero card. Hell, same with most of the cards. Experience gives the player more things to make decisions about, USING THE SAME SYSTEM THEY LEARNED as a beginning player. >What does this opportunity bottleneck give you?...command control problems... > fog of war...risk taking...feints ... Hear hear! The fog of war is the best in any wargame I've ever played, short of blind umpired games. >You also get a sense of urgency (I need a rally card now!) and a plateful of >agonizing decisions. Even though these decisions are often very gamey, the >agony is real. Design for effect anyone?. Yes, some of the decisions appear gamey. It's because it's a game trying to model "real life" behavior. But other wargames have gamey tactics, and they don't even have to be design for effect games. Soak off attacks, advantage markers (i.e. rerolls/double actions), and maps designed to make terrain defensible in a hexagon format show that gamey tactics are not necessarily bad mechanisms for trying to adjust the game to reflect real life. Up Front is a great game. If you've ever been fascinated by reading war stories or soldiers' diaries about small unit actions, you definetely would get a lot out of playing the game.