(this is guest post by Michal Oracz)

Neither Neuroshima Hex nor Theseus, and especially not Witchcraft are particularly story oriented games.

I’m not even trying to delude myself that these tactical monsters will take my players plunging into a different world, full of metal corridors, blue fog and radioactive fumes. These are all tactical games, kind of logical, while based in my beloved worlds – the postapocaliptic Neuroshima and the claustrophobic space horror.

Does that mean I don’t like story games?

Just the contrary – I love them.

In the last decade we created a lot of roleplaying games in Portal, among these two major lines. First, Neuroshima rpg – a 400 pages long rulebook and 23 expansion-books. All of these together with the anthology of short stories makes more than three thousand and five hundred pages describing the world of Neuroshima.

This universe has nested board and card games such as Hex, Convoy, 51st State, New Era, the Polish edition of Resistance, as well as a tabletop war-game called Neuroshima Tactics and a computer game Neuroshima Apocalypse.

Our second big rpg title is Monastyr, a dark fantasy game set in a world at a breakthrough between the age of knights and the age of industrialism. This world is ruled by xenophobia, populated by extremely intolerant and permanently stirred nations that form an anti-pagan alliance. Where the second part of the world is still filled with the hated magic. It’s a world divided in every aspect: religious fanaticism against rational cynicism, the pope against the emperor, union of men and technology against the world of magic, the underworld against the surface world, humans against the other races. For Monastyr we created 8 expansion-books and an anthology of short stories. Also the boards game Stronghold was set in it.

This is what we did for a dozen or so years. That was our job, hobby, passion. We created worlds, stories, we worked on characters and locations, events and threads, factions and challenges.

And this is where I feel best.

Most of my unfinished drafts and board game projects are mostly all kinds of adventure-story games, sometimes very weird ones.

Somehow, don’t ask me how (well mostly by coincidence) only my strictly strategic games were published so far. And so when you take Hex’s manual in your hand, or any of the expansions, you may under an impression that it was written by a robot.

I assure you, I’m not a robot 🙂

Using the space that Ignacy has given me on his blog, I’d like to sneak in a handful of curiosities; they will be a little hermetic and will concern the story that is hidden in or behind all of my tactical, board creations.

You must know that factions in Neuroshima rpg are very closely related to one another and are not as divide as in the board game NS Hex. A random example: Borgo. Mutants on the board fight against Moloch, in the world of Neuroshima rpg they kind of do the same but not really. Mutties often paranoid respect any kinds of technology, you can stumble upon whole altars raised from old engines and devices. Many mutants consider Moloch to be their god. To be honest Moloch is indeed their creator because in NS mutants are not an outcome of radiation nor magical anomalies, instead they are the effect of Moloch’s genetical experiments. It is Moloch that creates new species of a post-human, capable of existing in a completely devastated world. They are bred in terrariums that look like Moon’s landscape – desolate. Nobody knows why, since it was Moloch that initiated the destruction of the entire human civilization and took control over what remains. Naturally as authors of Neuroshima rpg we know perfectly well why but we left it hanging in the corebook as one of the few unanswered mysteries of this world. Moloch created many species of mutants, it’s armored convoys spread them all over the continent. Mainly in the proximity of the Mississippi river – the most noxious area of them all. As to Borgo himself – a charismatic cyber mutant, he rallied some a part of the mutants under his banner – hatred towards mankind.

Oh, yes. The factions they do mix – and it’s visible almost in every aspect of NS Hex.

The newest expansion for Hex is the Mississippi faction (as usually stripped of a complex story that can be found on the pages of Neuroshima rpg). We will find many mutants in the grounds adjacent to the Mississippi river because the river it Moloch’s main testing ground for new species. One of them being the Sharrash rats – independent but despite that they do a good job protecting the underground roads near Moloch’s borders. These mutated rats can also be found solo, for example in the area of Mississippi. Since humans are particularly distrustful towards mutties, that don’t look like homo sapiens, the mutated rats never take of their masks. Of course their looks are not exactly those of a normal rat, they are more like the batfaced vampires from the movies made after the year 2000. But hey, it’s better to keep your mask on, especially with a face like that.

And now a curiosity: well among the Hex’s Mississippi you can find one of the Sharrash rats – I’m curious if you can recognize him.

How about another piece of the Mississippi story? In the manual you one can encounter a strange rule called Dead Breath. When both armies will go down to zero during the battle, Mississippi wins. Why? Naturally to get rid of the unresolvable draw in the tournament rules (while using the tournament rules almost every draw is resolvable).

But what is it about story wise?

Dead Breath is a disease that made its first appearance in the area of Neuroshima’s Detroit and changed the city into a closed fortress. This disease changes people into bloodthirsty – let’s not beat around the bush – zombies. Where did come from? Who, one day, delivered its source in a metal container to the border area of the ruins of Detroit? And why was it opened? By whom? Officially it’s not known. All fingers point at Moloch and yet one of its sick experiments, aiming to prove something, to check something. Why in that case a unit that draws with Mississippi loses? Since for this faction a draw is actually a win? And why is this form of winning called – Dead Breath. Precisely, it’s a suspicious relationship, isn’t it?

In many places of the Hex there are resins hidden and they are very no more no less a kind of hermetic references to the world of Neuroshima rpg.

Does this introduce anything to the game? Absolutely nothing.

Why are this story based ‘winks’ in a game like Hex? Absolutely for nothing.

It’s just additional fun during the process of creation. Creating game, even such tactical monsters, should be mainly based on fair fun. For example a fun game of hiding the raisins.

PS. I just can’t wait when my new game comes out, since I have this feeling that the constant discussion about Hex, Theseus or Witchcraft is starting to sound with an echo of a bothersome mantra 😉

…or why I didn’t throw out randomness from Hex and Theseus?

(this is guest post by Michal Oracz)

A warm, spring evening. You’re sitting comfily in front of the screen reading a game review. There’s a picture, a title and five blocks of text.

Scrolling…

At the end of the review there is a summary:

Rating: 8/10
Pluses:
– Beautiful graphic design
– 90 plastic figures = money well spent
– Innovative mechanics of city development
– Theme and humor
– The whole thing weighs over 5 kilos and makes a pleasurable sound when shaken = money well spent
Minuses:
– Non-standard card size
– Randomness
– No interaction
– The game is for 2 players only
– Play time: 10-15 minutes
– Player’s age: 12+
– The box is red and black

No, it’s not a summary for Her nor for Theseus, they don’t have figures, boxes are lighter and interaction level is at 200%. This is a summary of some nonexistent game taken straight from Narnia.

The question is different: when did you notice that something was wrong with this whole summary? Was it the game time or the player’s age or the red and black box? If so, not bad.

But maybe it was earlier, where randomness and lack of interaction were mentioned as minuses? Really? It’s hard to believe since we’re used to treating randomness and lack of interaction as obvious defects and evident mistakes in games.

Who didn’t hear about a „stupid, random game”?

I personally like a bit of randomness, which even may – focus here! – influence the result of the game!

Sometimes I’m asked if Hex wouldn’t be better off without the random element. If everything would be in front of the player and accessible from the very beginning, turning the game into a real contest of the minds. Similar situation takes place with Theseus. Hmmm…

It is said that Theseus is a difficult game. The rules are very simple but during the game itself you really need to flex your brain in all directions to put all that you got into a game winning, asskickin’ combo machine. Phew, tough sport. Is it good? No. In commercial sense it is absolutely a flaw. But there is something instead. Theseus is very fast, experienced players can deal with it in about 20-25 minutes. Secondly all games are unique, each time there are different combos on the board composed from different cards and in different locations of the game. Finally: Theseus includes an element of RANDOMNESS. It’s not major but it’s enough – same as in Hex, you simply don’t know what will come next to your hand, that’s it. But IT IS THERE.

Oh yes, the short play time and the random element were kept in the game as a painkiller for the general brain consuming factor of the gameplay.

I wanted to make a game that would involve a huge amount of brain work while thinking about all these combos yet it would forgive the player the mistakes he makes. So that if you lose you wouldn’t leave the table feeling your brain is somehow worse than that of your opponent’s. So that you could always cheer yourself saying: This time you had some luck, let’s see how you’ll do in the next game. Let’s play again.

As a player I hate to lose because my brain was worse than somebody else’s. There surely are people who enjoy such level of competition. But I’m not one of them.

Adding the element of randomness to my games is not a result of tests, nor demand of the players, nor even a fashion. It’s the effect of the player I am, of what I enjoy in board games and of what I don’t enjoy, of what annoys me and of what I miss. Many players love to engage in heavy games with no randomness at all, logical and ruthless. I unfortunately don’t, I’m a different type of a player. I wrote earlier that I try to be honest and polish the gameplay while feeling it 100%, so I design games as if they were for myself. It’s the easiest way for me to evaluate the fun that comes from the gameplay. I’m not starting to design a complicated eurogame only because they are appreciated and a popular genre. I won’t make a game for kids only because it’s a huge and great target and a lot of players want to play with their little ones. I prefer to be honest as a designer and work only on what I know and what I feel. I like games with a well-placed and well-choses element of randomness, that’s why randomness will be present in my games.

Randomness, while anticipating the occurrence of new tiles or cards in the game, be it ours or the opponent’s, is also connected with a special type of emotion, totally different than the ones that we feel while anticipating opponent’s move. We know what may come to the opponent and what may come to us. But we don’t know when. We prepare a certain situation on the board, calculating in our heads the chances for drawing and playing more or less fortunate elements of the game in the upcoming turns. We create a flexible machine to overpower our opponent, we update it as the elements appear and we modify our plans. Sometimes we pray for a Bomb or a Sniper; sometimes we pray so that our opponent wouldn’t get a fast unit or a net-fighter or Move. We pray for him not to place the Duplicate or Safeguard. We beg our luck for the opponent not to draw Battle this turn! Not now! He got it… damn… Hurray, it’s a Bomb! I did it! A shooter, yay! I’ll close the combo! Phew, that was close, just one Push and I’m saved.

For the whole gameplay the player digests wishes and prayers in his mind, he keeps his fingers crossed and holds his breath. There is another game taking place in his mind, next to the board. Satisfaction and frustration occur, one after the other, anger and happiness. The gameplay is short and intense, the tactic is short-distanced so these emotions are also very temporal, the anger is very short and disappointment after a lost battle can be easily wiped with a rematch.

All this without feeling that your brain is somehow inferior because there always is light in the dark tunnel, a simple fact at our hand: “if I had the proper token back then everything would have been different. You were lucky!”. So what if luck or bad luck are just a minor element of the whole gameplay? What is important is the fact that we can always blame our defeat on fate.

Of course I don’t like „stupid, random games”. But I also don’t like ruthless, logical monster without the faintest trace of randomness in it. A minor and well placed element of fate is like a well-chosen spice. The game just tastes better.

(this is guest post by Michal Oracz)

The Neuroshima Hex factions are asymmetrical. They vary in terms of: mobility and attack strength, initiative, toughness, potential for clearing enemy units from the board, ability to control the board, ability to get out of trouble, possible combos or with the abilities allowing to blackmail the enemy and force him to declare Battle when the board is full and when it’s beneficial to us.

They also vary when it comes to how easy they are to learn and play, using their maximum potential. At the beginning some of them seem to be too easy, others too hard. They become equal only in the hands of experienced players.

When we sum up the statistics of both the experienced and the beginning players we will discover something not surprising at all: an army easier to master is the one that has more wins in this statistic. The problem vanishes in the long-term summaries of games because players are beginners for a lot shorter than they are veterans.

Borgo definitely bears the palm when it comes to terrifying players.

„I’m surprised Borgo’s balance wasn’t corrected in 3.0. Everybody knows Borgo is too strong and it’s a mistake of the Hex’s designers”.

I guarantee that never, in any upcoming edition will we change even a single tile in Borgo’s army. This faction is just the way it should be, it’s not even slightly too strong. It’s not too weak either – such voices can also be occasionally heard from players who have uncovered all of Borgo’s weaknesses and they feel overconfident.

What’s crucial in grasping both weak and strong sides of Borgo was included in the game manual:

Borgo is incredibly fast and can clear the whole board. It can cause a lot of wounds to enemy’s Headquarters when it gets close enough.

Meanwhile it is very weak at breaking through the protective wall around the Headquarters and the most effective attacks (Net-Fighter) are carried out by units that are rather defenseless, that need additional protection.

That’s exactly it.

This is where the truth about Borgo and its Achilles’s heel is. However, knowing this secret won’t change Borgo into a set of thirty-five useless pieces of cardboard. It’s still a fully functional, strong army.

So what should Borgo’s opponent know to feel he steps into the ring as an equal?

Let’s put things in order.

First of all Borgo’s Headquarter will most likely be placed at the middle of the board, which will give Borgo the six terrifying, hasted fields around it. This is when the knowledge of the less obvious Hex tactics comes in handy. See the tokens have more uses than just attacking or building combos, they can also be used to block certain crucial fields on the board. Should we flood these six fields with our own units we would rob Borgo of its haste.

Secondly if we cover all three fields in front of our own Headquarters, hidden in a corner of the board, and will NEVER trigger Battle in this game, Borgo probably won’t be able to get past to our HQ and won’t inflict any wounds. When Borgo activates Battle, it will at most remove some of the units defending our HQ, of course we will replace them just after this Battle in our own turn with new ones. Borgo’s only chance for scoring a hit on our covered HQ is a situation when a faster Borgo’s unit kills one of our defenders and in the next initiative turn Borgo’s Assassin shoots through the newly made gap. However Assassin’s initiative is 3 so the unit that takes down the cover must have an initiative of 4 or more and the shooter must be perfectly placed. Oh, and of course the shooter will only score a single wound on our HQ.

Nonetheless Borgo’s shooters, there are only two of them, are our number one target on the black list of Borgo’s units for elimination.

A Grenade can also make a hole in our wall, there is very little we can do against the instant tokens.

It’s time for a little digression concerning the Battles. It pays to remember that playing Hex often reminds a contest of nerves – it’s a game of forcing your opponent to invoke Battle. When the board is full the one who invokes the Battle pays a dire price: it’s always opponents turn afterwards and it is the opponent who gets to be the first to fill all the best strategic fields on the game board (for example resupply the defensive wall around the HQ or set up an effective attack). The one who possesses the potential assets to win this contest of nerves will often force his opponent to declare Battle and therefore gain the initiative. Such assets can be: a Bomb, a Sniper, a Grenade, a Net-Fighter, a Blocker, a Scout, a unit with armor, Movement or Push waiting in hand, all this depends on the situation on the board that led to an impasse.

Usually one of the players has the advantage – has more points or at least will have more points after resolving the Battle. You can be sure that this player won’t rush to declare Battle. The rule is simple. If both players will delay in this situation, the one with the advantage will simply win when one of the players will run out of tokens to use. So in most cases the situation looks like this: when the board if filled and only one empty field remains, the player who has the advantage won’t declare Battle and will only discard tokens in order to quicken the end of the game, meanwhile the player with a disadvantage delays with declaring Battle waiting for the token that will be a game changer for the upcoming Battle (like the earlier mentioned Sniper or Bomb). The winning player delays and risks; the losing player counts for a miracle and fearfully counts the time remaining until the end of the game.

Playing against Borgo, should you have at least a few points of advantage, cover your HQ and never declare Battle.

Third, thanks to its speed Borgo can, with time, take control over the board – meaning, after each Battle more of his units stay on board. We must remember about it. If there only is a chance to strike the unprotected back of the units controlling the board (such as the hasted Mutant or Claws) you have to go for it. Same goes to the possibility of a blow for a blow exchange if we have tough units at hand, so they will take out Borgo’s units even if they have lower initiative during the Battle.

Should you have at least a few points of advantage and your HQ covered, Borgo’s control over the game board is no biggie. You just have to last until the end of the game, just like a soccer team carefully defending a not-impressive but sufficient 1:0 score.

Oh and please remember that nothing clears the board like Moloch’s Bomb dropped on Borgo’s HQ.

Fourth thing, the Net-Fighter. It’s Borgo’s most dangerous unit – we can never make this fatal mistake and simply assume that the opponent won’t draw him next turn. Protecting our HQ, we can never allow ourselves to be so careless and leave an empty field near our HQ without even few quick-shooting unit’s targeting it from the neighboring fields. Placing our tokens we must assume that Borgo’s Net-Fighter will be set up there, paralyzing our HQ and dealing three wounds every Battle and possibly until the end of the game.

Summing up: don’t fall for the Net-Fighter trick, cover the hasted fields, gain few points of advantage, cover your HQ, never declare Battle, eliminate Borgo’s shooters. These are just the basics because the tactical and even strategic secrets of Hex are numerous.

Simple? Not at all. Borgo is a hard opponent even if we know its weak sides. It’s hard as any army in the hands of an experienced player.

However it’s high time to grow out of the fear of the blue color.

PS. In one of the upcoming episodes I’ll look into a similar case concerning Theseus, to be more precise concerning the Fire, a terrifying card of the Marines faction. Similarly, with pleasure, I’ll tell you more about other terrifying tiles from Hex, for example about the Outpost’s Mobile Armor or the Moloch’s Bomb – and about other strong and weak sides that you’ll be better of knowing about 😉

PPS. Thanks for all the propositions for the name of the Theseus’ robot faction! For now we are calling it Bots, it worth to say that during the polishing phase the army broke into two completely different factions: the first being the cunning and greedy A.I., which does whatever it wants to the Station, second being the heavy, armored, crushing machines that will roll over anybody like a tank. Both factions are being developed simultaneously (for now) but soon one of them will send the other to the waiting room, we will see which one it will be 😉

This is guest post by Michał Oracz

[this is guest post by Michal Oracz]

On one of the forums I’ve recently encountered a very curious thread, where gamers discussed how it’s often the case that the theme of the game repels them from even giving it a try. The discussion was dominated by hating all kinds of fantasy, horror or sf.

Many voices declared that they will never play a game in which there are zombies, space ships, vampires or elves. The only exception they allow is when such game reaches the top of all rankings, then and only then can these very serious people stain their gravity – to simply check out if under these silly clothes there is something noteworthy enough for them to participate in this child’s play.

Is it really the case that so many board game fans hate fantasy?

Something is not right here because when you look at the BGG’s ranking around half of the games in the first fifty are pure fantasy.

Why so many enemies than? Do they think of sci-fi as flippant?

I checked few threads ahead: the same people wondered why so many other people, who know nothing about the world of board games, think of it as childish, that such people look on board games having in mind the image of Snakes and Ladders. They wondered where all that ignorance and aversion comes from. Well isn’t that a similar situation?

Honestly sometimes I am flabbergasted when on a convention I hear my board games buddy doesn’t like fantasy. How could I have missed that? Do I assume that all board game people are also sci-fi people? I guess I do, completely unknowingly…

I partially understand the problem. For example a macho-guy want’s to play with his prettier half. If he doesn’t want to be seen as a nerd (nerd = a child with a beard – author’s annotation) taken directly from X-Files, he will think thrice before taking out a game with dragons or vampires in it. I am dangerously approaching the gender topic and I might get it in the neck but it is a fact that on conventions, forums and through my own eyes I see that: it is the fairer sex that hates sci-fi.

Fortunately there is a large percent of the notable exceptions (I salute you with the vulcan gesture, live long and prosper!) Luckily my second half included!

Coming back to our macho: it is a lot safer to put an economical game with some historic setting on your table. It’s serious as fit for adult people.

Maybe our potential co-players are a whole family, together with its mature members? Or we are playing with colleagues from work. The serious kind of work. We persuaded them for a weekend with board games. I think I’d hesitate myself thinking whether should I introduce them to this hobby through a gateway game with aliens and wizards in it.

You know how it is. Yes I play but only historical games. The serious ones. Logical. Optimization oriented. Space adventure games? No, never. I grew out of these a long time ago!

Don’t grow out of everything, too many people do. Sci-fi is an ability to look at yourself, your situation and your surroundings from a distance. And as you might know it’s easier to notice all that is hidden without a proper perspective. A useful tool, really it is.

It might be the case that I am under my own illusion. As Portal Games, from the very beginning and for many years, we created role-playing games, obviously sci-fi at that. Neuroshima (post-apocalypse), Monastyr (dark fantasy), De Profundis (horror), Frankenstein Faktoria (horror) etc. Only later did we enter the world of board games.

RPG and fantasy were always bound by an inseparable bond. It was so for many decades, right now it is starting to change. Still 99% of RPG games are sci-fi, space opera, horror, post-apocalyptic, gothic punk, fantasy, steampunk, primal punk etc. Something non fantasy? No way.

After so many years spent around fantasy role-playing games it’s not hard to forget yourself, to forget that we don’t design board games for the same people. That some PLAYER might hate fantasy. I will try to remember this in the future, it will save me the shocked expression on board games conventions.

I promise myself that, in the name of breaking with habitual behaviors, I will finally do something non sci-fi.

Meanwhile on my designer’s desk there is a new add-on for Theseus – Robots. Have you heard about Saturn 3? 2001: A Space Odyssey? Moontrap? Death Machine? Robots have quite a history in claustrophobic sf horrors.

And to celebrate it I’m going to the cinema tonight to watch Robocop, yet another remake of the 80s classic. Quite a few good ones lately, even though they lack all that red-violet reflectors and hectoliters of fog…