Color, Jedi, and Fishbowls: A Review of The Last Jedi

Okay, I wanted to see the movie. It’s Star Wars, and I’m going to see and want to see the movie no matter what. Will I like it? Probably yes, but liking something is just a knee-jerk reaction of taste and attraction, so let’s dig into the movie’s form and content to see what’s there:

In terms of form, the movie is, of course, a Star Wars movie, which means the filmography and special effects are first rate. There are well-composed shots of landscape and character throughout the film, especially in the Luke/Rey scenes, where Ireland’s rocky soil evokes the themes of those scenes wonderfully. The attention to color and palette in the movie is brilliant, possibly the best of the SW movies, though of course it contends with Empire. While the use of color and texture in The Last Jedi is more contemporary and more vivid, I don’t think the films use of those techniques surpasses Empire, especially in comparison to the duel between Luke and Vader on Bespin (Empire). Like Rogue One, the pacing is fast, almost too fast, and even with the slightly longer run time of the movie feels like a sprint rather than a marathon.

There were some genuinely inventive moments of special effects, and the theatre audience I was with seemed awed or impressed at times, especially in the hyperspace-ramming sequence, which is striking. The use of practical effects, especially in the Yoda scene, was welcome and necessary. There were obvious borrowings from more contemporary cinema; for example, the throne room fight with the new Praetorian Guard was very much a Chinese cinema scene, with layers of red on red and clever use of angles and slow motion. Formally, the use of slow motion was rather new and experimental—for a Star Wars movie—and Johnson pulls it off sometimes. The hyperspace ramming aftermath was good. The slo-mo in the throne room, too much like a “music video.”

Beyond the above, form is harder to split off from content, which is good. Johnson’s movie ties its characters and plot together very neatly. Characters make decisions, they make realistic and timely decisions in line with their characters and their character arcs. Rey, Finn, Kylo Ren, and Poe Dameron, each lead characters in their own right, are believable enough to hold the movie together. The content of the movie ties neatly into the formal aspects, which is not something that can be said of The Force Awakens, where plot was completely unrelated to character (a general problem in J. J. Abrams’s big budget SF films).

The film has four lead characters, which is perhaps one too many. The movie follows Rey well, and as Kylo Ren is a villain for her narrative arc he fits into the film neatly as her antagonist. Poe Dameron’s character arc is fairly stock (reckless flyboy learns the harsh realities of military leadership), but Oscar Isaac is charismatic enough that he carries it off, and the plot beats around him—probably the easiest to write—are fleshed out and resonant, leaving lots to work through in a following movie. I think the Rey arc is also well-plotted and there weren’t any beats missed in her plot. There are little moments of scene jumping—where clearly something important happened, but the filmmakers don’t show you the scene, say when she moves from the throne room to the Falcon—but every scene is either logically elided through dialogue or through reasonable exclusion, and so her beats are clear and effective. There were beats missed in her character development, but not in the plot. Kylo Ren becomes an even better villain, exploring anger as an aspect of the Dark Side of the force. Vader, and all other Dark Side characters have generally been merciless and cold, their presence one of either inhumanity (Vader) or of decadence (the Emperor in Jedi) [Darth Maul is a meaningless element in these discussions, as he lacks motive and identity beyond the aesthetics of his appearance]. These are all compliments to the film.

That said, Finn feels tacked on and stuffed into the movie. His entire arc has interesting thematic implications, especially given the Benecio Del Toro’s argument about war profiteering, and there were nice ties to the Episode One and Episode Two in the Casino bits, but the entire piece sees a little less character development and has no impact on the plot. It’s a big problem that the casino is just a waste of plot.

A critical problem with the movie is that it is saddled with too much corporate memo-oversight and too many weak ideas from The Force Awakens. Abrams made several bad plot and world-building choices in that movie, and for some reason—I suspect corporate—Rian Johnson’s plot focuses on the bad ideas at the expense of the good ones. Some good ideas slip through – Luke as a hermit, Kylo Ren as conflicted villain connected with Rey—while some bad ideas—the Resistance most glaringly, but also a slavish reworking of Episodes 4-6 were likely forced on him.

The Resistance especially is clearly a kind of corporate memo argument:

        Corp: Look the original trilogy had them be rebels, so make them rebels.

        Writer: But they won in those movies. They’re not rebels any more.

        Corp: People liked the old movies better. Find a way.

The First Order makes complete sense, as a remnant of the Empire, weakened, guttering, but maniacal in its fascist ideology. The idea of a New Republic works as well, as new state, rising up to meet them. The Resistance also can make a kind of sense—they operate as New Republic funded terrorists in First Order territory, which is probably too close to political allegory for Star Wars to work. It turns Leia into a Bin Laden, which runs too counter to the idea that Star Wars trades in Campbellian mythos-making in contrast with Star Trek’s allegorical arguments about our present.  In fact, the Holdo-Finn dynamic would work even better if they weren’t a “resistance” but a functional army. (As an aside, I’ve seen a lot of complaints about Holdo not explaining her plan to Finn, which makes me think a lot of people don’t understand how an army works). The prequels walked too far back from the myth-making, but you cannot fault the world-building Lucas did for Episodes 1-3. Each of episodes 1-6 make geopolitical sense and they maintain a consistent verisimilitude throughout.

So, let’s forgive the movie for being saddled with too many lead characters and a lot of bad world-building. Johnson was stuck with that. He was probably also stuck with a directive to callback elements of Empire and maybe Jedi as well. He does this somewhat well. The throne room here is from Jedi, the final scene obviously plays off of Empire. Kylo Ren’s offer to Rey isn’t original, it’s the same argument and offer Vader makes to Luke in The Empire Strikes Back. (In fact, Ren, like Vader, kills his master, just in a different order with less pathos in the scene).

Less forgivable is that the first act and third act dovetail, and that the second act is mostly negligible. The entire section of the Finn plot does little to increase tension and resolves nothing. The character development of the Finn arc is rushed and clumsy. I liked the moment when Rose Tico kissed Finn, but there needed to be a moment where love could have blossomed, and that beat isn’t there. There is a beat where Finn could fall for Tico – her meditation on slavery and economic abuse—but there isn’t a beat where Tico could fall for Finn. We needed to see Finn be tempted by cowardice, which was a core element of his character in the Force Awakens, and see him make a redeeming choice, showing Tico what kind of man he is and allowing the love to develop naturally. While the Finn character was integral to Force Awakens, he’s just eating up time.

Further problems lie in the way the first and second act end in the same place. Yes, Rey’s character arc progresses, but to be honest, the third act is just closure to a set of scenes that should have ended at the close of act one. While the plot is more coherent than the plot of The Force Awakens, it just swims in a goldfish bowl of un-resolved “tension” for two hours. The escape scene is great, the bombing run is good (I’ve read people grumping about how bombing in space is dumb/bad, but remember: Star Wars “space battles” follow the logic of WWII movies, just as a good Star Trek battle follows the logic of a submarine battle. Stop trying to get your science into the romance fantasy of SW), and the idea of trying to outrun the First Order is fine (not fine is the fact that at least one Star Destroyer could’ve jumped out in front of them easily [and if Han can plot a course into an atmosphere, yes the hyperspace jump could be accurate enough]). Honestly, the plot of this movie ranks second to last of all the Star Wars movies, despite the tie to character and despite some very memorable moments.

Worse is that the verisimilitude of the movie keeps breaking down. The Cewbacca-Prog scene made little sense; the sudden and inexplicable appearance of the “nuns” on Ahch-to, who are dressed like…nuns; the Holdo-charge, as cool as it is, doesn’t really make sense with how hyperspace works in all the other movies (we go “into” and “out of” hyperspace in all the dialogue; the ships lunge forward, then vanish from the screen, they do not fly forward really fast [again, it seems like people confuse Star Trek’s warp speed with Star Wars’s hyperspace], but I suppose it’s possible, just not probable, like it’s possible for magicians in Harry Potter to not use wands, but it wouldn’t be probable given what we know of the setting). The humor is too knowing, and often mugged to the camera. That’s a mistake Lucas made in The Phantom Menace with Jar Jar Binks and fart jokes, and Johnson makes it here again with a different set of gags. The humor needs to arise from the wit and the setting, as it does in say, Episodes 4-6, the Obi Wan lines of Episodes 2, and TV’s Star Wars Rebels. There’s two sections of the film—the “take out the guns” part and the way the crystal fox leads them into the tunnel—that are too ludological, essentially using video-game language instead of film language, but that’s a common problem with movies like this (at least there’s no platform jumping in this movie).

Finally, and most damaging to the verisimilitude, is the treatment of General Hux and Supreme Leader Snoke (the naming of this villain and the decision to make him low-rent Voldemort in design is beyond me—it’s probably the second major failure of visual worldbuilding in ALL the SW movies, after Ewoks). General Hux has good moments, and I do think the character has merits, but there’s too much playing for humor. He has no gravitas, and if Kylo Ren is your conflicted, angry villain grappling with parent issues, you’ll need a villain who’s got gravitas. Hux could easily be that character—the scene in the throne room where he debates killing Ren was nuanced, humorous, and good writing—but he’s made to be a fool too often. Admiral Piett had more class in Empire and Jedi, and was a better commander villain, even though he had to compete with Vader’s immense presence and, here’s the rub: Vader’s gravitas. You took Vader seriously, and I take none of these villains seriously.  

Snoke is well CGI’d, but he’s meaningless. Just as the Emperor appears without a real sense of purpose in Jedi, Snoke emerges and then dies. However, the Jedi scenes are better forewhadowed and its scenes are held together by the myth-making work of the series, os the Emperor and his temptation of Luke is memorable. Snoke benefits from none of that narrative weight. He’s just the angry guy in the chair. Not once did I believe he wasn’t a stock character without motive. He brought nothing to the setting, little to the scene, and, if we’re honest, chewed scenery. A romance lives and breathes by the quality of it’s villain. Roger Ebert said it of Wrath of Khan, and it remains one of the truest criticisms of narrative I’ve ever found. Kylo Ren is a great character, and a solid start as a villain, but he needed real villains around him to contrast his development against. We are not given those villains.

Other pieces of The Force Awakens are thrown away, most glaring the Knights of Ren. Who were they? Are they a group led by Ren? You’d think so, and Johnson doesn’t touch on it. The failure to use that element from Force Awakens harms the verisimilitude more (the masters of the craft, say Tolkien or Herbert would never do that; Tolkien would, hell he did, rewrite the book to make sense of the Ringwraiths rather than let them appear and then disappear).

And the final complaint, Luke Skywalker. Luke as jaded Jedi was a good choice. His lines about vanity and believing in his own legend are great. His arguments about the force and ecology were interesting and build neatly on Yoda in the original trilogy as well as in this film (though I do wish Yoda could’ve come clean about his abject failures in Episodes 1-3). The idea of luke cutting himself out of the Force was great, but a missed extended beat should have been Luke opening himself up again. Yes, there’s a beat, but it’s too short and too muted; if the Force is the all-binding Gaia that the movie claims it is, inspire us with it through beauty or sublimity, not just action sequences. Everything is great about the island. BUT, the problem is what got Luke to the island. The reservations Mark Hamill raised in interviews are probably about the idea of him sneaking up on, spying on, and then briefly considering killing Ren as a boy. Honestly, it’s not that bad as a writing beat. It’s supposed to make us sympathize with Kylo Ren (but remember, Kylo Ren’s a mass murdering head of a fascist war machine—we’ve seen him order mass executions and kill his own father, so not so much sympathy should be felt), and it sort of works. Except it doesn’t work with Luke’s character. It feels forced on the character by a writer’s idea. At first, I forgave it. They wanted a different Taoist priest stereotype instead of the Zen master stereotype of Yoda, and they gave us one. Okay.

But not okay. Remember the Knights of Ren? Who are they? Who was it gathered around Ren in the Force Awakens. Couldn’t you write an backstory where Luke ignores the warnings about Ren—he’s the guy who turned Darth Vader, so you keep the “believing my legend” content—and in the end, he’s betrayed and Ren and his cronies, these Knights of Ren—a new order of Sith, no more of this “only two” garbage, a full order of evil Jedi—and Luke abandons it all, seeing how violence begets violence and the Jedi must come to an end. All the plot content remains, but you have solid clear understanding of the character. You can have Kylo Ren lie to Rey about the events, keep the dramatic tension, heck, go for dramatic irony—we know Ren is lying, but Rey doesn’t. Luke could be evasive, insist that Rey find “her own truth” and talk a little about Obi-wan and his “points of view” problem. It keeps all the content and all the themes the film wants in play, but doesn’t “forget” about the last movie and doesn’t alter the Luke character in odd or counter-intuitive ways.

It seems like the movie wanted desperately to be different or separate from Force Awakens, and yet struggles again with plot and supporting characters. It flails, crutching on genre convention at the same time as it ignores genre conventions. If the movie accepted a three-act structure and gave us more meat in the training sequences and in the Finn sequence, then the movie would work better. It’s too bad, as the movie’s attempts to slough off the past—Ren’s “Kill the past” is great, and Rey being not-special, just from no where and no one, not a destined Skywalker, is welcome and important – much like Rogue One’s rejection of wizard-knights as characters was important (One I wish Star Wars Rebels had done on TV). But for all that swagger, the substance isn’t there. The movie drops us off thematically at the start of The Force Awakens, with some ways to go to establish its themes in another movie. While Episodes 1-3 will always be dragged down by weak direction and weaker acting, they at least kept a coherent plot and worked their themes with focus. I worry this film is sound and fury, signifying nothing, leaving the last movie to pick up all the pieces. Sadly, pieces like The Knights of Ren would be hard to pick up due to this film’s ignorance of them.

If it seems like the movie is bad, let me say it’s got better acting and some tighter visuals than Episodes 1-3. It’s a good movie, but there’s a better movie available to us, and The Last Jedi isn’t it. Disappointing, because it’s got some very compelling reasons to be good.

The main redeeming factors of the movie are two-fold: first, Luke’s send off is perfect. I’d almost forgive the fish-bowled plot because of it. It works, and works well—the music, the pacing, the whole thing is solid art. Second, this film is the first post-ecological Star Wars movie, building on Yoda’s lines in The Empire Strikes Back. The use of animal life, the arguments Luke makes, the general idea of the human abuse of the Force (Jedi and Sith taking natural forces and using them as tools of violence) was good, and could have been expanded on. The conversation between Luke and Yoda was good and meaningful. The movie has such promise, but it’s not fully constructed around its themes. There’s a need less singular direction and writing in movies like this. While Tom Stoppard didn’t help Lucas in the prequels, but it was Marcia Lucas who helped pull the original Star Wars (A New Hope) together, and Leigh Brackett made Empire an elevated script and gave it its intensity and prestige. Movies like these seem to need better and more collaboration.

The Last Jedi is a satisfactory and sometimes good movie.  

Drawn Armies: A Commentary and Analysis of Warmachine's Current Game State

Warmachine and symmetrical and asymmetrical design

This past month saw an interesting “state of Circle” discussion by Jaden of the brilliant Druid’s Dice. Party Foul posted a response that expressed concern over whether the CID was reducing player’s exploration of their factions and practice with playing the game (I hope I’ve represented your points fairly). Chain Attack and Muse have discussed burn-out and exhaustion in the community. I do not think these are unrelated points.

I personally found the CID rapidly took the winds out of my Warmachine sails, in part because playtesting done properly is a lot of work, more work than I can commit to, so I was only able to watch. The game started to feel like it was in constant flux, not just the models, which I can easily ignore, but the whole game itself. This impression (and I recognize it is subjective) was because of the Steamroller 2017 review. Reviewing the Steamroller packet in CID was a good idea, but it presented some problems, problems which I think are the reasoning behind some of the community flare-ups that have been occurring frequently over the past year. These flare-ups are not only about individual or group experiences, they also point to a problem in how WM/H design and discourse has been developing over the past five years. Warmachine is a game that struggles with the gap between asymmetrical and symmetrical game design, and it seems to avoid recognizing its high-denominator nature as a game.

The following is a long, but I think correct, analysis of some of WM/H’s core conceits and functions, with suggestions about how it might be restructured to better fit its points and goals.

Asymmetrical design vs. symmetrical play

Most people who play games regularly will be familiar with this concept. Symmetrical games are ones in which the table state and pieces are identical. Asymmetrical design is when one side or the other, or both, function differently. If the play is open-information and the turn sequence is clearly defined, then most of the experience of play can be considered symmetrical. If the players are working on non-aligned goals (separate goals) or if the players information loop is randomized and closed, we can consider the play to be asymmetrical.

Chess and Go are the stereotypical symmetrical game in both design and play. Many gambling games – slots – are the opposite, it’s asymmetrical in both design and play. Poker is, at low levels, asymmetrically as all get out, but becomes more symmetrical when you understand the design.

Magic the Gathering is deliberately asymmetrical in design. That is, some cards are simply better than others. Netrunner, or other LCGs, are not, they are symmetrical in design. Netrunner’s success as a game is because it has (or had) tight symmetrical design, but asymmetrical play. However, as the card pool increased, the symmetry became incomplete, and so the game became entirely asymmetrical as key deck archetypes began to overwhelm the play space.

Magic’s development is also illustrative here. Originally, WotC thought rarity would control the asymmetrical nature of the game, using real world distributing as a kind of force allowance mechanic. It almost immediately failed, so WotC added the four-card limit. Since the advent of the internet, rarity is a meaningless restriction for competitive players, to the point where well-respect and popular sources of new-player advice, like Talorian Academy recommend that players returning to the game not do anything but netdeck and buy singles. The idea of opening booster packs is regulated to the bad idea/waste of money category, and so Magic now exists in a constant state of unfettered asymmetrical design. The one saving grace is the control of the turn structure and the relatively low-denominator nature of the game, which means the game is harder to “quarterback” than others (more on this later).

All of the large miniature games are asymmetrical, and WM/H is no different. Each army is different, with different abilities, challenges, and themes. Warmachine is asymmetrical in design, but, I think, aspires to symmetry play. I think these are features, not bugs. In fact, I think WM/H one of the best designed games ever. But it does suffer from a problem, and that is, it aspires to symmetrical play in a high-denominator play environment.

Chess, Go, and Magic are low-denominator games. That is, there are few to no avenues to winning. The consistent strength of “blue” in Magic is because you do not win a low-denominator game by scoring points, you win it by not losing. Hockey and Soccer are low-denominator sports where penalty minutes are a considerably larger factor in determining victory than anything else. You win chess by not losing, and so on. (I am aware that Magic designers have flirted with multiple win conditions, but they’ve consistently backed away from making them constant…I suspect they realize it would tank the game).

A high-denominator game has either a wide division of points (American football), a rapid rate of scoring (Basketball), or multiple win conditions (Legend of the Five Rings or Warmachine). High-denominator games can be “quarterbacked,” that is an highly skilled player is more important than any other element – in sports, or in Warmachine, a powerful model that can be repeated or a powerful caster can quarterback the whole game forward (hence, Haley2, Asphyxious2, Wormwood, Madrak2, etc).

Now the immediate design problem with WM/H lies in its high-denominator model of play and its asymmetrical design. It uses five key ways to try to over come the complexity of the game’s contrasting design:

1.      Limit player input

2.      Points

3.      Field Allowance

4.      Force Composition

5.      Enforced Play Experience

First, WM/H limits player input into the design. Players can choose a model, but they cannot modify the model. Some games, like Infinity or Heavy Gear, present a range of options available to a model, which still controls player input. Warhammer, of course, allows for greater player input, with Wargear rules. WM/H forces you to play the models as they are. You play their warcasters/locks, not your own. You or I, as players, do not create models and do not interact with the game in that way. This is a massively effective way to control balance and gatekeeps all the subsequence tools.

Second, WM/H uses points to present the relative difference in asymmetrical design. This is a commonplace system, and the source of much grief and debate. There are probably systemic or intrinsic problems with using a points system, but WM/H is fairly solid in its use of points in Mk3. (it is possible that warbeasts might be overcosted, a subject that has repeated come back over the past year).

Third, field allowance limits how many of the point-costed pieces we can use. This is a limiting effect, like hand-size or deck-limits. Like points, it seems commonplace. The origins of FA in WM/H lie in the original skirmish game of 2002-2003, and it has suffered from growing pains ever since the game changed from a skirmish game to a war/platoon game. The FA model has never been questioned and overhauled and seems sacrosanct. It is a problem that has never been dealt with and a problem of both community and company. I do think FA is perfectly defensible, but it is largely unevaluated or uncontrolled as a tool.

Fourth, we have the Force Composition rules of WM/H. The game uses warjack points to require you to play jacks/beasts. Instead of altering FA, MK2 and 3 ask you to please play this way, and creates a kind of passive aggressive requirement to play a certain number of those pieces. The next level of the FC in WM/H are theme lists, which are theoretically optional.

Lastly, WM/H next tries to force you to play in specific ways, which we can call “Enforced Play Experience.” This is where we see the desire for symmetrical play come into the clearest light. Simply put, scenario design for WM/H seems obsessed with the idea of symmetrical play – when there are asymmetrical win conditions. This paradox is unavoidable. The presentation of scenarios constantly reinforces the “both players do the same thing” facet of the game. Steamroller 2016 was not much different than the scenarios in the Prime/Primal rulebook. In fact, one might argue that some of the core scenarios were better than some of those included in the 2016 packet.  Steamroller 2017 made small changes, but seemed to try to narrow the scenario route of victory and so further enforces the “play the game this way” that started this funnel (limit player input) and then deposits us into a game of WM/H. The inclusion of terrain placement instructions further confirms the role the document plays in telling us how to play the game. Now, I know there is nothing preventing us from building new warcasters or designing new scenarios, but for a sizable and vocal part of the WM/H community, these five elements combine to make the game experience what it is.

How do we evaluate these tools?

Ultimately, through intuition and play experience. Key problems in Warmachine are not the point system or the FA system. Those can be refined and work well. CID is likely a good engagement tool on that topic. Field allowance is not a critical problem, although if diversity of play pieces is to be valued, and the if the game is intended to be primarily about War jacks/beasts you could limit infantry to an FA of one or two, forcing diversity.  The main problems are force composition and Steamroller.

Force compositions, theme forces, and how they compromise the asymmetrical/symmetrical design paradigm

Force composition, at base, is a kind of symmetrical design goal, if it is applied across all armies. Some of the balance issues of asymmetrical army choices can be overcome by proscribing a certain number of points be assigned to certain categories. Long time, or older 40K players will recognize this concept clearly. In some card games, like Magic, Mana creates a kind of force composition requirement. Historically, Warmachine has steered clear of large scale force composition. Since MK2, the game has uses Warcaster/lock points to encourage/enforce the core conceit of the game –magicians marshalling magical machines or monstrosities. However, the fact that such points are always presented as extra means and the points vary in ways that are not always obvious means the points create asymmetry at the point of both list design and table top play, which means they counter-act the symmetrical element of force composition. That said, if the point system is tight enough (its close, but I think the repeated concern over warbeast points means the passive-aggressive design of Warcaster/lock bonus points seems to identify an apparent problem in point costing).

The next level of force composition in WM/H is the theme list. I want to stress that the approach taken by Privateer Press is a sort of carrot-approach. Rather than forcing players to use theme lists, they’re optional and designed to encourage players to evoke the narrative and setting of the game. In that regard, they are commendable. Theme lists further accentuate the design of force composition by having players sacrifice some facet of the army, limiting their choices, to access some further advantage. Again, this is a commendable goal.

But both goals are compromised in MK3 because the theme lists all default to offering free points. The theme lists take a feature of the game which is supposed to counter the asymmetrical nature of the armies (point system) and then reduces it to nothing, further overriding the next limitation, field allowance. Field allowance is only a restriction in a maximum point environment, that is there is a threshold that cannot be crossed. But the threshold of an theme list + warcaster/lock points is highly variable. Players can easily squeeze a maximum number of additional points as a priority, allowing them to make the symmetrical tool of point costs and FAs into asymmetrical ways to disrupt the game. In competitive environments where Steamroller is used widely, the symmetry of the scenarios means theme lists exacerbate the problems inherent in trying to make high-denominator games symmetrical.

And that leads us to:

Steamroller, symmetrical goals, and repetition of elements.

IF you watch the great short animated film Privateer Press put up, you’d get the impression that WM/H is a dynamic game of characters and cool battle moments. If you read Prime/Primal Mk3 or the Steamroller document, you would get the sense that all Warmachine games consist of fighting over circles and rectangles. The consistency of the Steamroller document has played a role in the expansion of Warmachine in the past five years, but the current iterations, 2016 to 2017 suggest a settling in of a problem, which is that Steamroller runs counter to the dynamic vision of the game.

Steamroller appears to accept symmetry as the primary value in competitive environments, but even so, the lack of imagination in the scenario design is simply unforgivable. Players do the same thing in eight different ways. The way deployment functions as most often lining up along the maximum line and then the first turn almost always being moving forward as quickly as possible is endemic. I realize I am simplifying deployment and the first turn, but having watched, listened to, or played hundreds of games over the past one-and-a-half decades, it seems to be the way play is commonly done. This repetitiveness combines with the problems of FA, FC, and enforced play to mean quarterbacking is still the primary way to win games.  

These problems will not be unique to WM/H, and we can ask how other games deal with these problems. Rather than run about an compare WM/H to other games, we might make the following suggestions:

First, asymmetrical scenarios would be a good start. Giving each side a different set of scenario goals would be a good start. They could even be faction specific and enhance the games setting. Or perhaps the scenario has attack and defender goals. Perhaps there is an element that penalizes both sides (heavy rain, darkness, disease, a forest fire).

Second, increase the terrain demands players face or enhance the rules. A chariot pathfinding its way around the board is odd, and frankly, terrain often offers little cover. Enhancing rules for hills and blocking line of sight would be good.

Third, redesign the theme lists to eliminate the following features: free models/points, and abilities that penalize other players. Ravens of War is interesting, but the removal of the opponents AD is troublesome. Instead, giving Legions players more AD (choose a unit to gain advance deployment) would be flavorful and dynamic, presenting a tactical problem instead of a strategic disadvantage to the other player. Use theme lists to augment with restriction – the way the minions theme augments the Gatorman Posse is a good starting point.

Fourth, remove loss on clock. Keep the deathclock, but go to assassination, attrition, and scenario as victory conditions. The game ends when one player runs out of time, another victory condition occurs, or the TO insists the round has to end. Then run through victory conditions or some other solution. Combined with compelling scenario goals, then the clock or play-delay shouldn’t be a problem. The goal is to reduce the high-denominators from four to three. 

I have more radical ideas for the game, but they seem beyond the scope of this already long (and tiresome?) essay.

CODA: a comment on community

I’ve noticed a trend in the community online towards negative memeing, git good, and, generally, inflammatory shitposting. If you want people to play your game, maybe all the negative framing of the community is a bad idea? Maybe the rambling click bait of “worst casters” and podcasts where people just “talk” about WM/H is a feedback loop of stasis? The best episodes of every podcast are the ones where they are talking about playing the game. Chain Attack is best when its doing battle reports or doing progression dojo, not chatting about broad categories (except the health episodes!). Party Foul explains tactics so well, and then wastes time on general complaining. Mr. Malorian’s battle reports are inspiring, but the OTTs don’t make me want to introduce new players to your content. Druid’s Dice’s ranking models on a subjective scale will never be as helpful as running through the scenarios and explaining your approach to them. We have a choice about how we present our role as players to both Privateer Press and non-players. As Josh Wheeler argued, be the change you want to be/do/(how did he rephrase that cliché?)

Conclusion

The problems of Warmachine/Hordes lie in a combination of community reception and the internal tension of the asymmetrical design structure yoked to a symmetrical play structure. The community issue is beyond the control of Privateer Press, though the CID is a smart move to help channel it into a useful vehicle for change. The internal tension presents a greater challenge. Altering one or the other would likely reduce the “feedback” in playing the game and make the game less prone to repetitive quarterbacking strategies. Removing asymmetrical design would destroy the flavor and texture of the game, and frankly, is impossible. Therefore, altering the symmetrical play structure is the better way to try to achieve an even better game.

Experimental XP system for D&D 5e

Here’s the proposed system:

Characters no longer receive XP points or Inspiration Points in the standard fashion.

At the start of a level, you receive a number of “Persona Points” equal to the level (so 1 at first level, 19 at 19^th). When you gain a new level, left over Persona Points are lost. You can spend Persona points like Inspiration Points. When you spend a Persona Point, you gain an Experience Point.

At the start of a session, each player (sans the GM) puts a fate token into a Fate Point pool. At any point in the session, you can take a point from the Fate Pool and use it like an Inspiration Point. Players can spend multiple Fate Points. Whenever a fate point is spent, all the other players (not including the player using the point) gain an Experience Point. You then pass the GM the Fate Point, and he can use it like an Inspiration Point for a villain or monster.

At the GM’s discretion – like a climactic battle or negotiation—the Fate Pool can be refilled, but it can never have more Fate points than there are players at the table (not characters in play, but actual players).

Players should record their XP on their character sheet and can note when they will gain levels using the following table:

Level	XP needed
1	0
2	5
3	11
4	22
5	40
6	57
7	75
8	94
9	120
10	145
11	171
12	198
13	232
14	265
15	299
16	334
17	374
18	415
19	457
20	500

Rationale:

A good experience system is vital to an RPG’s success. The most successful XP system is the one devised by Gary Gygax: you gain XP after defeating foes or challenges (or collecting treasure) and then level up on a chart. It is simple and effective. It encourages a kind of greed on the part of the player and provides an almost Pavlovian commitment to gaining levels.

As RPGs developed, new XP systems arose: BRPs use-of-skills system, which reached its apotheosis in Burning Wheel. The small points that you spend, common in games like Shadowrun or World of Darkness. Savage Worlds uses a similar small points, combined with an implied level chart (in fact, I think if Savage Worlds simply had a level table, it would be even more popular). The Cypher System rewards players for discovery, and for participating in the game well. The GM gives XP in game, and XP is a commodity that can be spent in game or saved for improvement.

Even more abstract, many gamers have discarded the awarding of XP for a “you level when needed” approach. I’ve been experimenting with this system over the last year. I made no major announcement to the players, it just occurred slowly as I forgot to award XP. I think this level of abstract leveling is interesting, as it allows the GM to control the challenge of the plot, and I suspect it occurred because the use of abstract level is a symptoms of a disconnection between plot and development of character. 

The major problem of all editions of D&D is a tendency to grind combat. This is most prominent in post-3e D&D. Paizo’s well-plotted Adventure Paths are great, but I think they suffer from the “grind” problem: in order to level the characters to match the plot, they have to engage in long, sometimes meaningless combats (the second adventure of the Age of Worms 3.5e Adventure Path is a textbook example).

As the post-3e era developed, the designers incorporated quest XP and skill challenges as a way to legitimate non-combat XP sources and allow the game to level faster. But the problem was they never gave enough XP to make them the center of the system, unless the GM modified the XP tables, which I did throughout 3^rd and 4^th edition.

However, there’s another dimension of D&D XP to be considered: it usually awards characters for doing things, but in all the small-point systems, or the “use-based” models, the player is one who’s rewarded. XP is for the player to spend, game, engineer and seek. In D&D, you only seek it as a contribution of the game – some players fixate on it—but you don’t participate in it. Games like Burning Wheel or Numenera actively have players giving away XP to other players, either at the end of a session or in play.

Likewise, the inspiration points of D&D (and the earlier non-D&D ideas of Willpower, Fate Points, Hero Points, Bennies, or Artha) are attempts to mitigate the problems of arbitrary dice and character-to-plot connections. They are a resource players draw on, but do not necessarily control, because the GM gatekeeps it. I’m bad at remembering to give out such points, because my GM style is either bad or ossified. But I think that the solution isn’t to give the GM more at-the-table work, I think the solution is to make the Players or the system itself the gatekeepers of XP.

So, we reorient the Inspiration Point system to be a static source and then we reward players for playing the game. It doesn’t matter what they’re doing with the points – fighting, sneaking, politicking, child-rearing, animal-taming, bird-watching—it only matter that they care enough about success or failure to use the points.

But the points can also be tied to the social contract of the table. So, persona points reward the player who uses them, but the fate points can be more eloquent: you draw from a common pool, reducing your party’s resources and empowering the GM, but you give everyone else XP. This means you want to spend the pool!

I’m going to pitch this to my D&D group and see if it works…Here’s a breakdown of the XP table. I’m assuming a 3-4 hour session. If you play longer sessions, maybe refresh the pool after that time has elapsed or a logical break point in your routine.

Level	Sessions	Fate	Persona	XP Needed	Total XP
1	0	0	0	0	0
2	1	4	1	5	5
3	1	4	2	6	11
4	2	8	3	11	22
5	3.5	14	4	18	40
6	3	12	5	17	57
7	3	12	6	18	75
8	3	12	7	19	94
9	4.5	18	8	26	120
10	4	16	9	25	145
11	4	16	10	26	171
12	4	16	11	27	198
13	5.5	22	12	34	232
14	5	20	13	33	265
15	5	20	14	34	299
16	5	20	15	35	334
17	6	24	16	40	374
18	6	24	17	41	415
19	6	24	18	42	457
20	6	24	19	43	500

The Good, Okay, and Bad of Star Wars: The Force Awakens

This is essentially a rambly series of notes that might be used to make a more detailed essay for the future. 

The best parts of the movie at those that are put into motion by the characters motives. This is basic storytelling 101, that is: tie the character to the plot, not vice versa. When the movie focuses on the “finding Skywalker” main plot, it becomes an excellent film (a bit like how Episode II: Attack of the Clones is a solid Obi-wan mystery plot juxtaposed with a horrible Anakin romance/mass murder plot). The use of an A and B plot mangles the third act, but we’ll get to that below.

Here’s what I thought was good:

Rey: I think Rey was the best thing about this movie. Obviously, the actors have been freed up by a direct who like actors (and usually strives for melodrama, but my dislike of Abrams aside, the actors are working very hard in this movie). This character was handled with skill, her nature, plot, and background were delivered smoothly in short bursts of sometimes subtle, but present exposition and her movement through the film and her development was compelling. Daisy Ridley was stellar, especially as she keeps the plot moving in the most interesting directions and a lot rested on her performance. (please don’t let her be a skywalker, please don’t let her be a skywalker).

Kylo Ren: I will immediately cop to thinking Ren was a liability going into the theatre. Star Wars has a bad habit of raiding the same trophes or narrative structures, and the “black armored Vader-worshipper” was making me doubt the film. I was pleasantly won over. The character is three dimensional, and while I admit the emo-Ren jokes are probably, I think it’s a misread of the character. He’s not an adolescent moping, he’s a villain tempted by the light. After years of “dark heroes” in comics and SF/Fantasy movies (Aragorn has to be conflicted in Jackson’s films, Batman’s what Gotham deserves in Nolan’s movies, etc) , this was a nice and complex twist. His lack of control and his failures make him a villain like Richard the III or Macbeth, that is a villain that you either sympathize with or want to succeed. Adam Driver was very credible in every scene and I felt the combination of Ren and Rey (please no siblings, please no siblings) could easily fill out two more movies.

The Han/Leia relationship: If anyone needed reminding, Harrison Ford is able to do more with a smirk than anyone other than Michael Douglas. Ford’s charm aside, The Han/Leia relationship was mature, complex and subtle. Much like the way Rey or the Force was handled, there wasn’t heavy-handed exposition, just well-chosen words and well-acted scenes. One bought the mature, no-longer together relationship, and it set the right tone for the movie’s climax.

The Force: After the ridiculousness of midi-clorians and the hyperactivity of Force usrs in the prequels, Clone Wars, and even Rebels, it was nice to see the Force returned to a more limited and patient element of the movies. The scenes are so nicely paced when Rey is learning from Ren, and so well-done. I felt the Jedi mind-trick wasn’t fore-plotted well enough (Rey should have either asked Solo about it or observed Ren using it), but the interrogation and final battle sequence were willing to take their time and develop the exchange instead of rushing for wish-fulfillment instant success. Likewise, the use of Han Solo to confirm the Force was a good choice.

Character was the best thing about the movie. If the later movies can focus on these new characters and let them drive the plot, it will be a very strong trilogy.

  

What was Okay

Some the the characters failed to really engage the plot, or the setting was present, but either running on routine or in need of new ideas.

Finn: Finn was compelling, but the plot arc was too heavy handed at the start. I also felt that Finn was a little too quick-witted in his jokes and irony for someone just “deprogrammed” from a violent training regime. Still, John Boyega held his own against Ford, and the character added humor and energy to the plot. I’m interested in seeing how he’ll develop in later films, but right now he’s a bit distant from the main arc. The return to human/alien Stormtroopers, and the brief lines between the General and Ren were great.

Maz: or, the new “Yoda.” I was interested in a more social, less hermit “little wise alien” and I was sad to learn she’d been cut out of later scenes. Still, I originally listed her as a “good” but in hindsight she became an okay. As a character, there’s potential, but the film squanders her and makes her a plot device instead of a character.

The First Order: I liked the way the story foregrounded that the Imperials are space-Nazis. I hope everyone who dresses up like Stormtroopers might start to think deeply about why they want to be space-Nazis (I’m not being censorious or funny here: there is a  serious discussion to be had about why the Imperials are so compelling to fans of Star Wars and it’s one people keep avoiding – the appeal of totalitarianism and Fascism might be purely aesthetic, or it might be far more complex). Either way, I liked the fact that the military leader assumed a more “Grand-Moff-Tarkin” like role in the movie, not simply filling in as background. That particular element was well cribbed from A New Hope.  

Names: Generally speaking, the names were well chosen, except for Finn and Poe. I kept waiting for an Ahab or Gatsby to wander in, or a Captain Melville or Whitman to show up. Jedi Master Whitman the great Force user, singing the Song of Myself or "I Hear Jakku Singing" as he lifts the Millennium Falcon out of a sandpit…"The force is like the leaves of grass, my young apprentice, like leaves of grass."

Design: Generally speaking the film had strong design, but that’s never been a problem for Star Wars. I felt the ships looked even more dense or chunky, but that may work aesthetically with the prior six movies.  

Dialog: “that’s one hell of a pilot” is the worst case of having the “niave” character tell the audience how to react to a scene they’ve just watched. Please, let’s have no more of that. The majority of the script was good, if it did crib too much from the Joss Whedon “clever witty lines that reverse the context” trick that he developed in Buffy and Firefly.

Climax: If the movie had remained focused on the “find-Skywalker” plot, then the climax would have been gold. The space battle dragged it down and didn’t add much to the narrative. I will avoid being too spoilerish, but this was a brilliant scene between Ford and Driver (although why no hand-rails, I mean who does health-and-safety on these places).

Dénouement: The final scene was nicely done, quiet and unresolved. I though the circling shot was pulled us out of the characters too much and so marred the moment. It was rushed into, but we’ll get that below.

Luke Runs-away: By now, there’s a repeated pattern: Jedi’s are bad teachers and when they fail they run away. It felt tired. I liked the idea of Luke retreating though…it makes a kind of Taoist find-the-hidden-master plot that worked well. The idea that Ren and Rey would be racing to find him was compelling. As an A-plot, it was new and interesting. The idea needed a little more complexity…why couldn’t Ren fall after Luke had left? Then you’ve got Luke’s regrets lived out in on-screen narrative time in the second movie, and the scenes would write themselves…

Generally speaking, the use of minor characters was fine, the monsters on the ship were okay, maybe too post-anime/manga, but let’s forgive that for now. The design and the use of specific settings – Jakku, Maz’s bar, etc was dealt with efficiently, with nice call outs to Miyazaki’s Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind in Rey’s introduction on Jakku.  

What was Bad

The movie hits the ditch bad whenever the Resistance starts to drive the plot.

World-building: Simply put, the world-building – Resistance, First Order, New Republic—made no sense. Any time I attempt to but together some kind of realistic framework for the polticis of this setting, it falls apart. This is not the case for the first six movies – at every point, the political frame of the setting’s background makes sense, even when it isn’t dealt with in much detail (the briefing scene on the Death Star in A New Hope that mentions the “senate” and the “emperor” was clear to a 7-year-old Canadian boy in Edmonton, so I think it works). There is no sense of the setting beyond the scene, and so the mass desctrution of billions of people on multiple planets is utterly meaningless and approached bathos. The universe beyond Rey and Ren is meaningless, and that’s not the way it should be.

Leader Giant-Hologram-Voldemort: This character was awful and probably unnecessary. He was boring and the visual design distracting and, oddly, poorly done. I thought he looked like an early Harry Potter version (that bad CGI) of that Orc general Peter Jackson inserted into Return of the King, toned down for kiddies and then plopped in. My wife’s immediate reaction was “oh, it’s Voldemort” which is equally fair. No more evil emperors training the dark-armor-villain guy please. Ren would be so much better with out him, and the First Order way more evil if it was just a group of people being monsters. We don’t need the deranged ugly hologram.

Starkiller: the weapon seemed dumb, and only seemed to exist because of a perceived need to blow up a big weapon. It was a lazy crib from the A New Hope, and never added to the plot. The Death Star is a real thing in A New Hope – the destruction of Alderan is driven by the characters, the characters then have to escape it, and then they blow it up. It created an entirely unrelated B-plot that produced unnecessary drag on the A-plot.

Poe Dameron: He was compelling for the first ten minutes and then was the figurehead of the B-plot dragging the plot into the ditch. I thought he’d be there more, but he wasn’t, and as a result, he’s totally disconnected from the other characters, no matter how many times he pats Finn on the shoulder.  

Actor service: The “minor” pilots and Resistance command staff were dominated by familiar actors. It broke verisimilitude and generally produced a sense of Hollywood-back-patting that didn’t help the already bad B-plot.  

R2-D2: This was the biggest gaff. The fact that R2-D2 was going to wake up and have the missing piece of the map was completely obvious and the heavy handed C-3PO lines were tiresome. When he just conveniently powered-up and got things going so the plot could dénouement was lazy. If the latter half of the film had been a race to R2-D2 (maybe Ren captured him with Rey and they had to go back…), then the plot could have avoided the Starkiller and made the R2 scene meaningful, but it felt like the writing was on auto-pilot. The fact that J J Abrams has later tried to clarify this moment means it wasn’t handled well in the film.

The Resistance: As I mentioned above, the Resistance makes no sense politically as it is explained in the film. When the Resistance shows up, we do get the great scenes with Han and Leia, but we also get the B-plot and a lot of narrative drag.

Plot was a problem for the movie. The first half of the movie works on all engines, then it develops a conflcit between that it thinks the plot has to include and what the characters need to be doing to move the plot forward. This is largely the result of too much was cribbed from the first movie. Some of it could be easily forgive (Maz’s bar, Jakku) because it was similar, but different and it linked to the characters in clear, meaningful ways (e.g. Jakku links to Ren, her scavenging, and her memories of being abandoned). The B-plot can’t be considered a success because it isn’t developed in tie with a character, not is it developed into a narrative need.

The movie was not as good as any of the classic trilogy films, except perhaps for moment in Return or Lucas’s less confident direction of actors in A New Hope. It is better than the prequel movies though and if the writers can develop new ideas and focus on character, there’s a good chance for stronger movies in the future. The move away from Abrams will likely be a good thing (I don’t care much for him as a director or writer…I pitched an idea to my wife tonight that he’s essentially a geek Michael Bay).