Tactics & Strategy in Game Design- Part II: Tactics

Now that we’ve defined the differences between Tactics and Strategy, how does a game’s design enhance such play? We’ll start with Tactical game play, which at its simplest has three major elements.

Element 1: Resource Management

One of the bedrock concepts of tactical play is to make the most gain with the least expenditure. After all if you have unlimited resources and no reason to avoid using them, you can do anything. And being able to do anything hardly makes for good tactical play, instead of working towards of a goal with clever play- you just do it.

The exact nature of resources can vary greatly in RPG design. The number of spells you can cast in a day. The amount of ammo you can carry. The number of Hit Points you have and the number of healing potions you have to restore them. At the most basic, there’s the number of characters in play and the number of actions each can take in a turn.

Earlier D&D editions have always been a masterful example of a game design heavily built on resource management- limited charges on items, limited number of potions, only so many pre-selected spells per day, etc. D&D forces its players to decide how to best spend resources at almost every turn. Even in 4th edition, once-a-day and once-an-encounter abilities represent resource management although at a weaker level.

As a general rule, increasing the number and types of resources you have to manage increases the tactical play of the game.

Element 2: Dissimilar Assets

To study tactical battle one must study combine arms (the concept, not the modern military use although that’s fun as well). Combine arms is nothing but the use of Dissimilar Assets to achieve a goal.

To use a modern warfare as a model: Artillery is powerful and long ranged- but vulnerability to almost any attack. Armor combines protection, firepower and mobility into one package- but encounters major problems in certain infantry defended terrain. Infantry is slow and light on weapons- but can make maximum use of terrain. Name an asset and you name both strength and weakness in a single word.

Combining Dissimilar Assets into a functional and dangerous whole takes skill and knowledge. Failure to do so (like France’s failure in WWII) can be disastrous in the extreme.

Early game designs had Dissimilar Assets and thus Combine Arms as a core feature. D&D with its classes- Wizards are very different than Fighters who in turn are used differently than Clerics. Even later games still maintain this to some extent. Vampire has its clans. Deadlands its gunslingers, hucksters, and blessed. These games are designed such that each character becomes its own niche, its own type of Dissimilar Asset that enhances tactical play when viewed from within its own group of players.

Other games however consider such stark limits as unrealistic and seek to reduce all the characters to common terms.

As a system weakens character niche, it reduces tactical play. Universal Resolution systems, lack of character differences, sole dominating weapon selections, all these things combine to create a tactically bland experience where the answer to any problem is obvious and unchanging. Even though such reduction is often done from the standpoint of realism, a simple look at real world combat would show that it is in fact a failure from even that perspective- there are no single dominate weapon, no one solution to every threat, no plan that survives contact with a foe.

Element 3: Maneuver

Managing resources is the bedrock of tactical play. Controlling Dissimilar Assets each with their own resources is the first step to being a tactician instead of an accountant. It is however with Maneuver that one masters the subject. Sadly it is in Maneuver that most RPG design perform worse.

At its most basic, Maneuver is getting the right resources into the right position at the right time in order to maximize your chance of success while protecting against the same from your opponent.

Of course for Maneuver to matter, you have to be able to maneuver. Many designs forgo the use of a map completely and either ignore movement or abstract it out of the realm of character decision.

A design that focuses on tactical movement will include rules for facing (and flank and rear attacks), multiple opponent rules, the effects of range, the impact of terrain and other factors that can (when properly used) allow a force to defeat unskillfully played opponents with greater resources.

Pace of Decision

The three elements above, added to the rule system in use determine something I call Pace of Decision. Pace of Decision is at its most simple how fast can the player lose. It’s a measure of the importance of each decision and movement.

While a number of factors determine a game's Pace of Decision, how lethal a system is may be the most important.

For example: D&D provides Resource Management by having Hit Points. However these same Hit Points reduce the game's Pace of Decision since they act as a buffer to bad tactical choices. You can lose a few hit points by moving to an inferior position, but it’s easy enough to move again afterwards and use a healing spell or potion and thus carry on the battle. In other games, that single bad decision could result in a disabled or dead character. Hence the Pace of Decision can be said to be Low (D&D like systems where many hits are needed to kill) or High (one hit means a dead character).

If Pace of Decision is too low, any tactical error can be forgiven since its impact is minor at best. The winner is almost solely determined by who had the greater resources. On the other hand if it is too high, the battle is over before it started with initial deployment likely determining the winner.

The ideal position between these two extremes is one of personal taste.Indeed, the combination of the elements above that work best is a question that can only be answered by each individual. Everyone has his or her own tastes and the possible range of answers here is immense. And this explains more than anything else, why there is room for more tactical games.

An Observation

If one reads between the lines above, you’d find an interesting common thought. The core of tactics is providing options (resources, different assets, movement options)- but its framework is one of limits.

A resource once spent is lost for an important period of time. A dissimilar asset can’t do everything. Requiring maneuver means that you can’t be everywhere. Etc.

The heart of tactics is bringing the best assets and resources to bear at the correct point at the correct time. The theme of tactics is overcoming limits. Consider that the next time you look at a game that promises to let you do anything.

Note: the above is an edited and slightly updated version of this 2002 article.