I do lose track of what I’ve said in each venue, so there may be something you haven’t heard before here. By here, I mean in a new interview about DreadBall Xtreme in Starburst magazine.
Yes, I know they spelled my name wrong in the title. Happens all the time…
This article reprinted by kind permission of Ravage magazine.
I’m always surprised that anthropologists don’t hang around gamers more. We are a superstitious lot, much given to watching for signs and portents, careful ritual and lucky talismans. I think we’d make excellent study subjects for understanding how myths and legends arise among primitive cultures. There must be a few doctorate studies waiting to happen, for example:
Luck and the Gamer – Hard Statistics versus Irrational Belief
Fetish and Totem Items Among Developing Gaming Cultures
The Etiquette and Social Impact of Dice Cups and Towers Among European Gamers
You get the idea. Personally I’ll be looking forward to the paperback editions. Or the movie.
For reasons that are intuitive to anyone who’s ever played, spending more than 5 minutes around dice makes you believe in all manner of unlikely and irrational things. I know it’s not just me because I’ve seen it in people of all ages and types and over many years. Believing in the Gods of the Dice is just part of being a gamer.
Let me give you some examples and see if any of them sound familiar. Most of them are rituals that supposedly bring luck – because luck is what it’s all about.
You’re playing a game that involves a series of dice rolls to resolve a combat. You roll some dice and then offer your opponent the ones that hit because they are close to hand and are the right number to roll next. He politely refuses, knowing that your dice are loyal to you and will not work as well for him.
He picks up his dice from a heap on the side, carefully selecting those he feels will be lucky this time instead of the half dozen that are nearest. Perhaps he goes by intuition alone, or perhaps he chooses ones that were sitting with the 6 face up, or the 1s. Whichever he feels “charges” them best. Perhaps instead he decides that the ones he rolled last turn had been underperforming and reaches for some “fresh” dice that have so far not taken part in the battle and haven’t worn out their luck. Of course, all the dice are from his carefully chosen “special” collection. He simply couldn’t use the ones that came with the game. Oh no. Whichever dice he chooses it won’t simply be the nearest ones.
When he picks up the dice he shakes them in his cupped hands and then he blows on them. Eh? Are his hands cold from the chill of the room? Are his dice too warm like his cup of tea? No, it’s luck again (or is it magic)?
Even when he rolls them onto the table he can be influenced by luck. Sometimes certain areas of the table are unlucky and others roll better. No, seriously, I’ve seen it happen. And why is this any more odd than the rest? If blowing on dice can make them roll higher numbers, then why not different parts of the table?
These are just a few of the more common rituals that go together to make the runs of good and bad luck that plague gamers, and I haven’t even mentioned lucky dice cups, hats, badges, plushy Cthulhu mascots and all the rest of the stuff that is brought out especially at tournaments (where every edge counts).
What on Earth is going on?
Human brains are very good at pattern recognition. In fact, it’s one of the things they do best. This skill is responsible for all sorts of useful survival traits, but is also the reason why we see teddy bears and elephants in clouds and the face of the Virgin Mary in a toasted cheese sandwich. In a gaming sense I suspect that this is contributing to a number of common features you hear about round the table.
A couple of terrible dice rolls on the same part of the board makes that bit unlucky; winning the first three times you wear that raggedy old Essen T-shirt makes it lucky; that unit never wins when the hero is with them despite his extra dice (so he’s unlucky). In this last case it can even change the way you build an army or play a game. I’ve seen board gamers do the same thing, choosing suboptimal options (when judged purely on statistical value) because they find them unlucky: “I never do well with the Trader.”
This is no different from the often-mentioned idea of the mere presence or absence of certain people (usually Bond girls) being lucky for gamblers round card tables. It’s also related to the superstitious nature of combatants throughout history. They are risking their lives whilst the gamer only risks losing the game, but the principle is the same and all seek an advantage. The need to feel that you have such an advantage is far more powerful than the need for it to make any real sense.
Few people sit down and record every dice roll they make over a long period of time. I have.
On the face of it that might make me King of the Geeks, but there was a perfectly good reason (at least some of the time): battle reports. When I started doing battle reports we used to write down every dice roll. The idea is a sound one: you don’t know what’s going to be important until the end so you record everything, just in case. The turning point of the game could be early on, but you won’t always see it at the time. It also meant that we could go back and ensure that the rules had been played correctly and so on. In any case, we made notes of everything. The reality is that dice are random and in random sets you will get apparent patterns, but they never stay. That’s what random means: there is no real pattern.
Well, that’s not entirely true. In an individual game there sometimes are apparent local patterns that last for a certain time, and this is where I think the whole basis for a perfectly reasonable belief in the Dice Gods lies. From having actually studied the numbers I can say that even when a player’s dice rolls for a whole game were almost perfectly average overall, it is not uncommon to see a certain subset of those rolls show a significant and consistent deviation. In other words, when you break it down, a single type of random event can easily show local patterns. For example, I’ve been playing a lot of God of Battles recently. My orc stone thrower has been underperforming terribly. It should, on average, get 4 hits per shot. In four games, with multiple shots per game, it had not managed to ever roll more than 4. It has rolled 2, 3 and 4 hits, but never more. Its actual average was way below where it should have been. Now I know that this is random and so I kept it in the army despite a strong urge to decommission it as an unlucky piece. Perhaps it read my mind. Sure enough, in the last time I played it redressed some of the balance with its first (and only ever) roll of over average: 8 hits. It’s an unlikely way to redress the overall average of the piece, but it works, and over a longer time I’m sure it will be even more balanced. But until that point? Well I’m a believer…
Can you play a whole game without any special dice, lucky hats or blowing on the dice? Do you feel comfortable doing so?
What are your lucky rituals? Can you think back to when they started and remember what triggered them? Are they still true now?
A number of people have asked why it is that in DreadBall Xtreme Strikers are not allowed to Slam. After all, there are “no rules” on the pitch. The answer seems so obvious to me that it’s been hard getting it across, so I’ll try to explain the background reasons a bit more fully. It’s crystal clear in my head so the issue is just one of conveying that image.
Let’s start off with defining the terms in the title: Slam and Strikers. Exactly what does each of them mean in the world of DreadBall and DreadBall Xtreme?
DreadBall is a full contact sport.
The entire time a player is on the pitch they can expect to be pushed, shoved, jostled and barged about – and they’ll give the same back to their opponents. There is a constant undercurrent of violent contact in the game, and this ubiquitous jostling for position is far too commonplace to be modelled in detail in the board game. However, it does appear in the game rules in an abstracted form as the modifiers imposed by threat hexes, and the requirement to make Evade tests.
It’s not worth trying to model the bulk of this pushing and shoving as specific tests because it is so ubiquitous. To do so would double the playing time. Also, the bulk of this shoving about isn’t very effective and only really gives a player a marginal edge for that moment’s jockeying for position. All the extra time spent rolling tests would make very little difference to the outcome. Watch something like basketball and you’ll see this sort of shoving used all the time around the scoring zones (and BB isn’t exactly a full contact sport like DBX). It’s routine, it’s used by every type of player, and of so little consequence that it is largely ignored by the referee. This sort of contact is not a Slam.
So what is a Slam?
A Slam is a powerful and focussed attack that aims to knock down and injure the target. It’s not incidental barging or shirt pulling, it’s a deliberate assassination attempt.
In the context of this routine undercurrent of violence, a Slam has to be of considerable violence to stand out and have a distinct game effect. The players are collectively inured to the normal bumps and bruises, and a level of incidental violence is just part of moving from A to B on the pitch. Nobody thinks twice about it.
In order for an attack to count as a Slam it has the potential to be the sort of thing that a 300+ pound fully armoured Orx Guard is going to notice.
There are two basic skills on the DB pitch: handling the ball and smashing opponents out of the way.
Strikers are one of three player types in the game: Guards, Jacks and Strikers. This distinction between player roles applies in DBX as much as it does in the DreadBall played in the main arenas and on the tri-vid. It is a core feature of how the game works in all its forms, in both background terms and board game rules. If the player roles are not present then you’re not playing DreadBall.
Strikers are defined by one simple feature: they can’t Slam.
This is what makes them different from Guards or Jacks. Sure they can handle the ball, but so can Jacks. In fact, some Jacks are better than Strikers at that skill, so that cannot be the defining point of difference.
I’ll say it again: the key defining feature of the role of Striker is their inability to Slam. Guards can Slam. Jacks can Slam. Strikers can’t.
Now as Strikers can’t Slam they have to be good at handling the ball otherwise they are useless on the pitch. That follows naturally. However, it is a consequence, not a defining feature.
Of course, on the pitch a Striker can push and shove opponents like anyone else (and they exert threat hexes like everyone else to show this in the board game). Nobody is banning them from that. However, for one reason or another they simply aren’t up to attacks that would count as Slams. Why not? Well, there are a number of possible reasons. The first ones that spring to mind are:
Whatever the reason, Strikers are physically, mentally or emotionally not equipped to Slam.
You might say that a player could fake an inability to Slam and get onto the pitch as a Striker only to start laying about the opposition later in the gane. Well it’s a big universe and I’m sure that happens on a few, rare occasions. Never with the same person twice though.
Who are the most dangerous people in DBX? I’ll give you a clue – they aren’t the players.
Lying to a Sponsor, taking their money under false pretences, upsetting the (very possibly rigged) betting by doing things you’re not supposed to… how do you think this will go down with the borderline psychopaths that run the games? The players that get onto the pitch are pussycats compared to the very heavily armed bodyguards of the Sponsors, and these are not people you want to upset. Players who lie to Sponsors tend to lose them money. People that cost Sponsors money get put in the recyclers whether they die in the game or not. The players know this and act accordingly.
A Striker cannot Slam because not being able to Slam is the key defining feature of that role. It is the very essence of what a Striker is. If the player was any good at hitting people hard enough for it to be counted as a Slam then they’d be classed as a Jack or a Guard. So, if a player can Slam then by definition he is not a Striker.
In DreadBall a team gets 5 Team Action Tokens (TAT) in each Rush. This is the bread and butter of what they can get done, though it can be supplemented by free actions and Special Move cards. DBX uses the same basic principle, but only gives each team 4 Team Action Tokens each Rush. Why the change?
There are a couple of reasons, both of which push the rules in the same direction.
Firstly, the fact that a Rush is made up of several actions (as opposed to one) is partly a reflection of the ability of the team to work as a team. They train to back each other up and to execute plays that consist of clearing a path, passing and scoring with a number of players performing interlocking tasks. The teams in DBX are temporary collections of disparate individuals whose teamwork skills often leave much to be desired. They understand the basics from watching the professionals, so they know what’s possble. Some may even have had some practice in amateur games, so they aren’t totally useless. However, they clearly shouldn’t be as good as the professionals who train as a group all the time. A good way to illustrate this is to reduce the number of things they get done in a row – the TAT.
Secondly, DBX is much more dangerous than normal DB and I found that 5 actions meant that a punchy team could too much damage to their opponents in a single Rush. If a team actually tries to score then they won’t do much damage to the opposition as they’re busy doing other things with some of their actions. On the other hand, if they spend their whole time trying to cripple the opposition (a perfectly legitimate tactic in DBX) then the amount of carnage they can cause is a bit overwhelming and starts to make things less fun. To make things more interesting the amount of damage that could be done all at once needed to be reduced a little.
This does mean that there are fewer actions in a game overall, or it would if this was the only source. However, the Special Move cards are a bit more easily accessible than they are in normal DreadBall and so this balances things to the point that I didn’t feel the need to make the game longer. The fact that these card-based actions are more closely defined helps keep the second point under control. Well, as much as you want it to be 🙂
There are some nice side effects from this reduction in TAT. One important feature is that the Rushes go quicker, and this helps balance the tendency for people to spend more time thinking about their moves in DBX (because there’s more to think about with the variable pitch). This keeps the overall time down.
I’ve gone through the feedback on the DBX questions page and incorporated it into the digital download rather than list a separate FAQ. A version 2 is live now if you want to check it out.
If you have any questions then please comment on this link so I can keep them all together.
A simple question. The difference in logos is a clue. The real answer depends on what you mean by the question though. Are you asking about the difference in background, in the reality of the game for the players, or the way the board game plays on your kitchen table?
In terms of background, DreadBall Xtreme (DBX) is the underground, illegal and much more violent version of the sport. It harks back to the origins of the game and is played with makeshift equipment in ad hoc arenas, again, just as the game was initially – back in drop hanger 91 on the warship Dread. So, the difference in background terms is a number of things. It is the distinction between the trillions of credits earned in advertising on the main arenas of the professional game, and mere millions earned by the shady sponsors who run the Xtreme game in the dark corners. It is the passionate love for a game which some devotees feels has got complacent and soft in its success and who wish to return to the sweat and blood honesty of its origins. It is major league political will and control versus small time gangsters who resent anything official interfering with their creaming off a little profit. It is all these things and more. Finally, it is the chance for the fans to see real carnage, and not the sanitised, medi-bot supported version broadcast live for your viewing pleasure every night (with only one commercial break).
DBX has been part of the background of the game since before the first Kickstarter campaign went live and forms, for me, a counterpoint to the shiny main arena games that makes both more interesting.
DBX arenas are not the shiny, purpose-built affairs you will see in the major leagues. Being an illegal sport makes anything permanent a magnet for the police and so fixed venues are avoided. Instead, the organisers have grown efficient at quickly adapting any secluded space of sufficient size to their needs, using portable lower tech equipment to set up a pitch as and when needed.
The very nature of this temporary arrangement has some important game effects.
To start with, the pitch is not the same every time. Some venues will have concrete pillars in the playing area, others will be littered with barrels and crates or old machinery. Whatever the cause or type of obstacle, it is a rare DBX game that is without them.
With no awkward Health & Safety inspectors hovering around the sidelines, there is nothing to stop the organisers making things “interesting” for the players by booby-trapping some of the obstacles which inevitably litter the pitches in such hurriedly organised games. This makes the already dangerous lives of the players even more hazardous, though it does make the game more fun to watch. More fun translates to more people coming back, and so a better take for the sponsor who’s organised the match. And if a few players die? Well, no harm done. There are always more to replace them for the next game.
The lack of real barrier between players and fans makes it more dangerous for both. While the board game ignores the casualties among the crowd, the Nasty Surprise cards are, in part, a representation of the dangers that the crowd can inflict on the players by throwing bottles, weapons and more.
When it comes to representing this on the tabletop, the challenge was to show the exciting variance of the game without throwing out too much of what we know is a good system.
For those that haven’t played DreadBall, the new DreadBall Xtreme is a complete game in its own right. However, there is also the option to cross over between games with the players you’ve already got in your teams. More on that another day.
If you’ve played DB you will be familiar with the core mechanics of DBX. However, some of the gameplay is very different. There is a mixture of large, obvious changes and small, subtle changes. All impact the way things work on the pitch.
A few examples will serve. If you want to know more of the detail, have a look at the beta rules.
The pitch is mutable. Different positions of obstacles and different positions of live strike zones makes each pitch a different challenge. tactics need to be adaptive, not static.
There is no referee. This means that things which were fouls in the main sport are no longer illegal.
There are no medical robots to remove and repair injured players. This means that the injured lie on the pitch till they get better or die. These injured can be slammed by opposing players or given support and aid by their team mates. Even if left alone they need to make recovery rolls and will either get better or worse. They won’t stay the same.
In many ways DreadBall Xtreme is a very recognisable iteration of DreadBall itself and the fact that players can move between them underlines this. However, as soon as you start to scratch the surface the differences begin to show. And, once you add up these differences and get your team on the pitch, you’ll find that it’s a very different experience indeed.
With the DBX KS live, people suddenly want to talk to me. So much so that I’m nattering on about DBX on the latest Mantic podcast, did a live bilingual interview with the Spanish chaps from Forya Y Desvan last night (recorded for your amusement in a mix of English and Spanish) and am finishing off a written interview for Starburst magazine today. When that’s done I’ve got another slot on Meeples & Miniatures to talk DreadBall Xtreme with Neil, and there are more folk waiting in the wings.
So if you feel like a fix of DBX and have a spare moment, there’s plenty of discussion to choose from 🙂
At least, that’s how it feels for me. Later today the beta rules for DBX go up, and if experience is anything to go by that will rather increase my time answering emails and comments.
The Mantic podcast I recorded on monday will also go up today and that’s got some explanation and some tease as well.
With DBX, as with any other new game, there is a lot to explain. And, me being me, I’d like to explain the why as well as the what of the thing. I always think that understanding the background to a rule helps you understand and remember the actual rule itself because it’s less abstract. There’s a reason things are the way they are.
Once you guys have the rules to read and play with then we can start talking details. That’s when the real fun starts 🙂
I’ve been fiddling with the DB FAQ and have changed it to a pdf as I think this is more convenient. The Q&A themselves are not different enough yet to worry about. I’ll let you know when that happens. Still working on an updated version offline 🙂
Like the title says, we’re skipping a month. This seems to be the start of the convention season and Foundry are away for several of the weekends in March at one gaming event or another. No staff means no venue for us to play in, hence the postponement. You can, of course, continue to slaughter each other in the privacy of your own homes. I for one will be playing God of Battles at my local club tomorrow, so don’t let this lack of an event at Foundry stop you 😉
I’m trying to sort out some confirmed dates for later in the year and will let you know when they’re more solid.
Quirkworthy 