Agony of Victory, Thrill of Defeat

Vince here - I wanted to take a moment in my blog post today to talk about losing in wargames. For most of us, as humans, we generally like to win. It’s fun to conquer your enemies, see them driven before you and hear their general lamentations, but of course, you can’t win all the time. The most important part of the wargame to me is to make sure both players are having fun throughout - however, in the end there is usually a winner and a loser.

Losing in some games can be painful, not only do you have the general sadness of the loss, but in a campaign, you might lose some demons, they might suffer penalties, and you might not gain as much in the post-game. This was something I absolutely wanted to tackle in Reign in Hell.

From a design perspective, I am a big fan of what is referred to as “winning for losing,” which basically means that even when you lose, you still gain something. Let’s call it a consolation prize. There are many examples of this across the pantheon of gaming, but one of the best examples in wargaming can be found in Age of Sigmar with the Blade of Khorne “Blood Points” mechanic. This mechanic gives you a blood point whenever a unit is destroyed, yours or your enemies. So when your enemies are destroying your army, they are also fueling your mechanic.

In Reign in Hell, I wanted to make sure that there was more parity between winning and losing. Certainly winning the game still carries a higher reward, but the battle itself carries risk, and that can be felt by either player, regardless of outcome.

A good example of this is the Soul Loss table. Both players, regardless of winner or loser have to roll on this table for their slain demons, so it’s entirely possible for the winner to suffer more long term deleterious effects than the loser. At the same time, the table has both positive and negative effects on it. Further allowing for variance in the outcome regardless of the victory status of the person rolling the dice.

Titles are another area where you can see this. I love the Titles system in Reign in Hell and I may do a whole blog post about that in the future. Essentially, Titles are granted when you achieve certain things in the game (or over multiple games). The trick is that not all of these things are positive. Titles are granted for being the first to die multiple times, for dying to terrain and so on. Further reinforcing that even if you have a string of bad luck, you can still get a reward for your time spent in hell.

The goal in the design above all else was fun, and I think that when you are running a campaign, you will find the time between the games when you are completing your post game activities to be tremendous fun and have just as much suspense and surprise as the game itself often. Sometimes, you may just end up feeling the agony of victory or the thrill of defeat.