A Tale of Tactics
It was just another Thursday-night battle practice for our local medievalist group. We were grouped up into two teams of around 18 fighters each. Both teams, in previous battles, had proven fairly evenly matched. But now we were mixing things up a little bit. Not by changing teams, but by changing commanders.

It was time for some of these young kids to learn a little bit about being a battlefield commander.

Really, there wasn't a whole lot to it. Live-action simulated combat is the very definition of "real-time." Just as in computer games, there is not much time for complicated tactics. But you do have to plan ahead, respond to the changing situation, respond to what the enemy is trying to do, and try and take advantage of weaknesses in the enemy's tactics or formation. The tactical depth of American football.

So the new commander was some sixteen-year-old kid, who had an immediate deer-in-the-headlights look, and we tossed him into the water to see if he could swim. I promised to keep my mouth shut until after the battle was over. The opposing team chose their new commander, and we let our guy choose our tactics. It was very straightforward approach with a single battle-line and an archer in the back, but he tried to make sure we had shield-men - myself included - evenly distributed across the the line. Just don't let the enemy through, he said.

I was on the far left end of the line. I don't remember being assigned there - I just took the position because being on the flank was a tougher position to hold, and called for a more experienced player.

Unfortunately, once the battle was joined, the right side of our line didn't do nearly as well to hold their positions. They began falling back, putting us in a diagonal line with myself in the front. Now two of us felt like we were facing half the enemy force by ourselves. I could see what was happening - it was a common tactic - and exactly how it would end. But that was just me. I bit my lip, trying hard not to issue any kind of warning or orders on my own, listening for our temporary commander to make some kind of call - any kind of call.

Nothing.

I was gimped by a sword-shot, which meant my mobility was now down to practically nothing. Our whole army wheeled around behind us. At this point, I really WAS facing half the army for myself. They'd used a small portion of their force to move the bulk of our own. They hadn't flanked us - they'd forced us to turn our flank to them. Now they had a half-dozen guys who could take us on practically one at a time.

I had some grim satisfaction in holding them off by myself far longer than anybody else did. I think I survived about fifteen seconds after that, and the battle was over less than thirty seconds after I was gone. They steamrollered lengthwise across our line.

Afterwards, I asked the team - and especially the commander - what had happened. Previously, we'd had pretty even battles, but this one had been a disaster - I think we had taken only about three of them with us. Except for a couple other veterans, nobody really had any clue what had happened. Just bad luck, they thought. It had all happened too fast. For me, it had seemed textbook and moved practically in slow-motion.

For some of the group, the light went on. They realized what had happened and - to our credit - we didn't let it happen again. For others - including the young commander who was grateful to be replaced by another inexperienced leader for the next battle - I don't think they ever quite figured it out. It remained a case of bad luck. Just fight harder next time, they figured.

When I first started playing live-action medievalist battle-games like Dagorhir, I don't think I appreciated the tactical side of things either. For me, it was just about fighting better and harder. My focus was more on how to get my foam-padded "blade" to hit its target while trying to prevent my opponent from doing the same. Ironically, it was when I was turned loose with some others as a "berserker" - where our only focus was on individually smashing through the enemy shield-wall and causing as much disruption as we could before dying - that I began to appreciate tactical issues. Specifically, I discovered how sacrificial "shock troops" could leave an enemy force extremely vulnerable to an organized follow-up attack. Once that dawned on me, I began to realize how even our simple formations and very loose discipline on the battlefield and embryonic forms of mutual support really made as much difference as player skill - if not more so - on the battlefield.

Back in the early days of the dice-and-paper hobby (and, indeed, now with the newer focus on the use of miniatures and tactics in Dungeons & Dragons), the derivation of the hobby from wargames resulted in a pretty tactical feel for the game. At the very least, you'd try to control choke points like doorways, protect your physically weaker party members (the "squishies," like magic-users), and center area-effect spells on the spots that would do the most damage. Oh, and nail that evil high priest or wizard quick, in spite of his protective bodyguard of trolls.

Our computer RPGs of the early era often tried to replicate some of that experience - noticeably in certain titles like the "gold box" SSI D&D games, or Realms of Arkania. While admittedly many of the battles became similar after a while (not to mention tedious) for the most part I really did enjoy this stuff.

It's a very fun aspect of the hobby - and one that I fear has been disappearing in modern computer and console RPGs, even as it is enjoying something of a resurgence in the pen-and-paper world. This is probably because - as in my own case in the early days of my participation in Dagorhir - it's something a little bit "meta" and out of grasp for beginning players. They don't get it, and don't appreciate it, and have enough problems switching their own powers on in the middle of a fight.

Some players may never get to that level, or never grow to enjoy it - and I'm glad there are still quite a few games out there that cater to their interests. Maybe not enough - the single-player western RPG still seems to be a little on the scarce side these days compared to other genres.

But all is not lost. Many jRPGs, at least, are still maintaining at least a rudimentary, abstract form of tactical play, at least in the form of "rock-paper-scissors" style puzzle-like encounters. Swapping in the right players or magical items for an encounter may be a semi-trivial decision, but at least it takes the gameplay beyond the brute-force "hack & slash," as we used to call it. And then we have the hybdrid "tactics RPGs" out there that are focused on this aspect of the genre almost to the exclusion of all else. Raids in MMORPGs all but require a measured use of tactics to succeed - though only a few players need to worry about such things while the rest simply follow orders and do their job.

And then, we've got the indies. Are there enough RPG fans out there who enjoy the simple tactical side of RPGs enough to be catered to by the indies? Though Jeff Vogel claims that he doesn't really consider "tactics" to be an aspect of his games, a lot of players feel otherwise. Sound, if simple, tactics can at the very least mean the difference between too frequent usage of healing magic.

I would like to believe there's more room to explore this aspect of RPGs for the indies.

Labels: Roleplaying Games

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