Assorted cataphracts thoughts part 1
I really like the cataphracts discord for having ideas floating around but sometimes you can get stuck in a rut. I'm going to try and step back and distill my thoughts into blog posts more often, even if they aren't too polished. (I just saw Write More Short Blog Posts: A Manifesto as I was writing this up! Regrettably, this is not short, but it's in the same spirit.)
On violence and pursuing goals
Two things I think often get confused in cataphracts: violence and pursuing goals.
Cataphracts and similar games can go off track when players are not on the same page about the importance of pursuing goals. It's frustrating for people who approach it as more of a freeform game, and frustrating for those who want to play a more adversarial game. This often incorrectly gets ascribed to bleed, but the problem is really an out of character one: you are trying to do distinct, incompatible activities and getting frustrated at each other.
Because this often incorrectly gets ascribed to bleed, the root cause is often misdiagnosed. Commonly, people see the problem as being an aversion to violence in a game about war, or something like that. This can be a problem, but I now think it usually isn't the main problem. The problem is that Cataphracts is a game about pursuing goals, but exists adjacent to freeform online RP-oriented games that look superficially similar but which have incompatible playstyles. Part of this also is that freeform RP can also be quite a fun part of Cataphracts, and isn't itself a problem.
This sort of disconnect happens in other games. Just as Cataphracts is a team game about pursuing goals with your teammates, so are many RPGs. If you are doing a dungeon crawler, you don't bring a character who doesn't go into dungeons. Maybe you bring someone who doesn't want to but who desperately needs the money. There is room for nuance, but only so long as you have bought into the activity you are doing together. There are also games which are not about dungeons at all! You just need to be on the same page about what you're playing.
Cataphracts design and the complexity budget
Think of cataphracts games as having a complexity budget.
There is no such thing as a complete cataphracts game. Every cataphracts game takes a subset of what you can do and focuses on making that work. There is some hypothetical platonic cataphracts ideal that mortals can only see one small portion of at a time without horribly burning out.
You and your players have a certain amount of time and attention you want to put into the game. This varies by game. Big, exciting games may be able to ask for a higher complexity budget from their players, but being big and exciting adds a lot of complexity for the ref. Different people have different amount of time, different things take different amounts of energy for them, etc. None of this is absolute.
As a ref, you want to ask what you are excited to spend time and energy on, and what you're most excited to see your players spend time and energy on, and how much of each you think everyone realistically has. I was talking about this with Limeade, who runs Haruspex, whose advice was (paraphrasing vaguely) that you want to figure out what your core idea is and stick with things that support that core idea.
There's often a lot of discussion of what the correct thing to spend time and energy on is, which is I think besides the point. The ideal game cannot be run or played.
There's probably a longer blog post I can write here about this. I like to run games by myself and I'm lazy so this is something I've thought about a lot.
Common mistakes
I've been spectating some games and noticing many people make the same mistakes I do:
Your enemy has the same flaws you do. They have limited information, which is to say, they do not know most of the things you know and cannot act on them.
Most experienced players are too pessimistic. Everything always looks like it's getting worse for everyone.
If you are feeling discouraged, take a step back and figure out all your options. Is there a better approach?
Nothing is over till you are dead. Never underestimate your opponent's ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
The most effective player attribute is showing up every day. The second most effective attribute is reading the rules and looking at maps. Everything else is marginal.
Miscellaneous ideas
One: No fixed end date, but at a certain point, resting and maximum morale starts going down for everyone at regular intervals. The game ends when players decide it ends or when everyone's troops have all deserted.
Two: What if you had the two continents style game like in Vanitera but instead you had a couple small islands that don't interact directly? Or like the jokes about all the games somehow being in the same world? Each game individually is quite small and hopefully manageable, but you get some of the excitement and shared community of a big game.
Three: Extremely quickly put together and with barely any thought to balance. This also has the obvious problem of where do these troops come from if you aren't a starting commander. This is really just a vague sketch of an idea that isn't ready for a real game yet.
You get one trait. Your trait determines your personal detachment, who is loyal to you personally and who you have known your entire life.
Beloved: You have no personal detachment. Everyone and no one loves you.
Brutal: 120 light infantry
Commando: 100 skirmishers.
Crusader: 50 heavy infantry. Their loyalty is contingent on your faith.
Defensive engineer. 50 heavy infantry.
Duelist: 20 heavy cavalry.
Guardian: 50 heavy infantry
Honorable: 120 light infantry
Ironsides: 50 heavy infantry
Logistician: 50 light cavalry
Outrider: 50 light cavalry.
Poet: 20 heavy cavalry
Raider: 50 light cavalry
Ranger: 50 light cavalry
Scholar: 20 apprentice wizards. They have no combat strength.
Siege engineer: 50 heavy infantry
Spartan: 100 skirmishers.
Stubborn: 120 light infantry
Vanquisher: 20 heavy cavalry
Veteran: 50 heavy infantry